The Caregiver's Love
by misinmyname
Summary: What can happen in two hundred years without the one you love? Orihime's world is turned upside down when she meets a new recruit; a person she loved once, who forgot her. A person named Kurosaki.
1. Monotony

"Come on, Ichigo, let me see it."

He shook his head, frowning. She wanted to burst out laughing, he just looked so adorable.

"Please, Ichigo?"

"No! Why do you want to see it anyways?"

She gave him a look. "It has my name on it."

He kept on frowning. She still wanted to burst out laughing.

"I'm not going to let you see it, Orihime."

She sighed. Ah well, so much for using her feminine wiles, whatever those were. She knew that fanfiction told lies about what worked on boys. Oh well.

"You're right, Kurosaki-kun. It's yours, I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

He looked over, still frowning. This time, she didn't want to laugh at him. She felt horrible—she had invaded his privacy. Not only that, she had done so for no good reason, only her own curiosity. She had been very presumptuous.

His words interrupted her train of thought: "Forgive you for what, being curious? Yeah right, Orihime. I'm not that bad of a person."

He called me Orihime, she thought. Even after I went and called him Kurosaki, he still thought that I was Orihime. She looked down, trying to hide her blush.

He thought that she still felt bad, and, looking around to make sure that nobody was looking at the two of them, he tossed his iPod onto her lap. She looked up, startled. He wasn't looking at her.

"Kurosaki-kun?"

"Go ahead, look," He was still staring away from her.

"Are you sure? I really don't have to see it."

He finally turned back to her. "Yes, you do."

There was suddenly a loud slamming sound. Orihime looked around startled, but she couldn't tell where it had come from or what had made it. Ichigo didn't seem to have noticed the sound, either. So she dismissed it.

"No, I don't."

Wait. Orihime hadn't said that. Then who...?

"Yes, you do!" it was louder now. And suddenly she realized that it wasn't Ichigo talking. He was frozen, looking at her the way he had been a minute ago, when he was given her the iPod. But his words were still going on and on. There was a slamming sound again, louder this time. Ichigo still wasn't moving.

Then it clicked. She knew what was happening.

Orihime reluctantly opened her eyes. Another day. One more period of purgatorious existence. Again. Another day in that place that many had died to be able to see, a place for which death was a prerequisite.

She didn't like it. She wanted to be in her dream. Her dream where Ichigo was within reach, within fathomability. A fake place, a fake world, a fake existence. It was fake, but it was so much better than the dimension that she lived in.

She would give anything for her dreams of the two of them to be real, to be the truth. She wanted him to be safe, to be with her. But the two did not go had in hand, either the people or the abstractions. He would have died if she had stayed. She had left for him.

It had been a long time ago, Orihime mused. Ancient history to some.

She snuggled back into the pillows of her bed, wanting to go back to that dream, that wonderful, beautiful, peaceful dream. She closed her eyes, sinking into the sheets, ready to depart.

Her eyes shot open. She couldn't remember the dream.

She wanted to cry. She had only wanted a few more minutes. Was that so much to ask?

There was yelling in the hallway, people arguing about who had to do what. She sighed. Apparently, it was too much to ask. She supposed that she should not try to postpone the inevitable, but she simply could not help herself.

She got herself out of bed, resigning herself to another day. She walked to the chair that sat in front of a vanity with a mirror and sat down, looking at her reflection. She looked the same way that she had looked every day for the last two hundred years: tired.

She god up and began to get dressed—today was a new day, she told herself. You never know what will happen. She got herself ready, dressing exactly the same way as she had the last sixty three years, since her promotion. She arranged blue flower pins in her hair. She looked at herself once more in the mirror, not bothering this time to sit down, and smiled at herself. And almost burst into tears right then and there. Almost, just as she had done for the last two hundred years. And just like every day before then, she simply smiled again and turned away before she could call herself out on her lying face, her treasonous eyes.

She left her room, then. She took her Zanpakuto, hanging it over her shoulder in the way that she had seen Retsu Unohana do several times in the past. The distant past, but memorable nonetheless. She chastised herself for being to sentimental. Nostalgia was something that she left behind every morning when she left her quarters and didn't take up again until she removed her uniform at night. It had no place in her work.

She strode down the corridor towards the argument that had awoken her. It was remarkable that she had not woken earlier—the sound was deafening, almost to the point of being noise as opposed to language. Oh well, she sighed to herself.

"I'm not going to go there, I'm sorry. No, I refuse."

"You refuse? You lost all right to refuse a long time ago, Shimura. Or did you forget where you are?"

Isao Shimura glared right back. "Yes, Caregiver Kimura, I know very well where I am. But I have my rights, and I refuse to go out there, not to take in another insolent bastard who will be another failure. Does it have to be me who goes? No, somebody else can go. I don't have to. So let somebody else do it."

They were clearly close to a fight. There was a crowd gathering; apparently, Orihime had not been the only person woken ahead of schedule. Orihime didn't like fights. She put herself forward, so that both men could see her.

"May I be of assistance, gentlemen?"

Both men jumped to attention. "Yes, chief Caregiver Inoue, what can we do for you?" She smiled. She supposed there were some advantages to being so gifted.

"What is it that the King has commanded to be done?"

The men looked nervous. Orihime suspected why, but she wanted to be sure why before she volunteered.

"You see," began Kimura, "There is a new recruit."

"Ah. And Isao here has been asked by the king to see this new recruit safely here?"

Kimura looked to the floor. "Not him specifically, but I..." He faded out, not completing his sentence.

Orihime was confused. Her presence was truly not so intimidating. She had only asked a question. A perfectly legitimate one, too. She just wanted for everything to go smoothly. She liked being left alone to her own devices, to retreat into her thoughts. She had become very content being alone a long time ago, the first time she had been to Hueco Mundo.

"Yes?"

He kept his face angled towards the ground. "Nothing, chief Caregiver. Forgive me for this disturbance."

Ah, much better. Blessed silence. "Thank you, Kimura. Isao, you do not have to go, I will go. It's been a long time since I've been outside of the walls, and I need to keep myself in practice."

The man looked relieved. Both men, as a matter of fact. They expected to be reprimanded for their racket, which she was half in a mind to give them, but... oh well, no matter. So long as they stopped taking her time, she would be content. They were not bad people, after all.

She looked up to the group of people that had gathered to watch the spectacle. "Does anybody know if the king is awake yet?"

Hikifune stepped out. "He should be awake by now, Orihime. He'll want to know the plan, of course."

"Thank you, Hikifune," Orihime called as she started down the corridor towards the King's reception room. Hikifune was one of the few people in this place that Orihime found herself truly getting along with. The woman was just so similar to Orihime, as if the two of them were sisters. There had been a time, in the earlier years of her life in the universe, when she had had fantasies that the two of them were related (which actually seemed possible, given the circumstances). It was a waste of her time, though. Even if they were distant relations, it was not particularly significant now that they were all dead, Orihime thought ruefully.

In all honesty, Orihime did not like the person that she had become. She missed being innocent and kind. She missed ignorance, naivety, call it what you will. But there was no going back.


	2. Travel

**Author's Note:** I feel like I should tell you all some things about this story. First of all, the idea for it came to me at about four in the morning, which is about when I wrote the first chapter. I have no idea whatsoever if this is any good, I'm just throwing it out there.

Also, I want it to be known that I'm incorporating parts of other book series into this fic. Not obviously, not characters, but little things. Orihime's powers are inspired by one of my favorite book series, which I know is a banned series here on . It should just be known that this is not a fic of that story, this is a Bleach fic.

Oh, and please review, people. I honestly have no idea if this is actually worth reading, I don't even read it before I post it, though I might go bak and edit it later or, I dunno. But please give me feedback.

Thanks,

**Emmy**

It was time to go.

Orihime walked across the top of the wall. Looking down, she spied the forrest below. The Jungle was a wild place, she knew from experience. This was going to be a long, unpleasant trip. But she had volunteered for it, and she wanted to go. She wanted a break from all of these people.

She stopped at a certain part of the wall, walking to the edge to check the sun, which was close to the horizon on its way to the other side of the world, to verify that she was going in the right direction. Yes, this was the place. She turned around, checking to see if the guard was on its way, and, seeing that it was, jumped off the wall and into the massive foliage below.

Of all the five realms, the terrain of the Royal Realm was the most dangerous. The world of the living was diverse, Orihime decided, the kind of place where you needed a lot of talent to survive, but a whole lot of skill in one are would not necessarily do you any good. Hueco Mundo was a desert, a harsh condition, but with few risks to life except for pure boredom. All of the life in Hueco Mundo was exactly what one would expect to be there: Hollow. Everything had a pattern, everything was easy to comprehend; in short, Hueco Mundo was a place where one would die for a lack of food before they died in a battle. Soul Society was simply boring, with nothing threatening. Not even the Shinigami there were scary anymore, Orihime thought. Not since she had been chosen.

The Royal Realm, however, was different from all of the others, in that the Royal Realm embodied pure wilderness. Covered with one giant jungle, broken only by the Soul Palace and various pockets of water the realm was more dangerous than the other worlds combined and multiplied several times over.

The Royal Realm was where the souls of all deceased animals went to. For a time, Dinosaurs had been the reigning creatures of the castle which now served the Soul King, which is part of why the castle was so large, and also accounted for the lack of doorways. But the dinosaurs had left when humans evolved and took over the castle.

This meant that outside of the walls of the Soul Palace, humans souls (And the variations thereof—Shinigami, Normal dead souls, Hollow, and so on) were at a serious disadvantage. Humans, after all, are not the only creatures with Soul Powers, only the first ones to use Zanpakuto. Some of the other creatures had developed incredible ways to use their environments as Soul Weapons, the equivalents to Zanpakuto without the blade.

It was a subject that Orihime had studied almost endlessly. She was, after all, a caregiver—it was her job to know as much as she could about Soul Powers and be able to manipulate them in any way. It was part of why she was so well qualified for a recovery mission such as this. Orihime understood the Jungle of the Royal Realm better than perhaps anyone else did, a surprising but true fact, considering her relatively short amount of time spent in the Royal Realm.

She started along her way towards the portal, running through the thick upper branches on the trees that had room for her to do so. She allowed her mind to drift—she had many friends in this place, they would warn her if she was about to be attacked. She knew better than to expect their protection, they would not defend her. But she could get fair warning—not that she needed it, it was just a comforting thing to know.

She sighed. Orihime loved these times, when she was all alone in the Forrest, running and running as fast as she could. She refused to Shunpo—that was not her domain. She would never use Shunpo in her life, she had decided a long time ago. A silly decision in hindsight, she mused, but a decision is a decision, and breaking a promise to anyone, even yourself, is unforgivable.

It was something Ichigo had taught her through his actions. She knew Ichigo better than almost anyone, and she considered herself to be one of his three best friends, though maybe she was fooling herself a little bit. Regardless, though, she knew Ichigo better than almost anyone—she knew that he had not promised anyone that he would bring Rukia back. Hell, he hadn't promised anyone that he would bring her, Orihime, back. He had promised to himself.

That was the key to everything, Orihime supposed. To stick with decisions. And she had made a decision to never use Shunpo. Ichigo had always used Shunpo, and it was something that she had never had a lot of hope for mastering, anyways.

Yes, she repeated, a promise is a promise. She would never Shunpo. She would never forget how wonderful he was, had always been. She would die to keep him alive in her heart, if that's what she had to do. It didn't matter, though—Dying was nothing. Living was the hard part.

Orihime's thought slowed some, going from her memories and decisions to pure enjoyment, feeling the wind in her hair and the strain of the muscles in her legs—such a wonderful feeling, so exhausting, such a wonderful way to move.

She continued that way for a while, making good time for a few hours. The sun was nearly down before she met the first animal of the day, and it was nothing significant, and she left without a slightest trouble just a few minutes after they met. It was nearly dawn before she saw the first marker, The Red Swamp.

The Red Swamp was not really a swamp, only called that because of the amount of for that covered it—in reality, the Red Swamp was a lake that was only really visible during the sunrise and set, when the light was able to penetrate the surrounding forrest and reflect off of the lake's surface at the right angle to show that there was, in fact, water, as opposed to mud, as most assumed. In the few hours when the sun was at a good angle, the light reflected and refracted around the fog in the area, giving off a red glow, rather like polluted clouds at sunset. These misconceptions earned the Red Swamp its name.

Orihime looked at the sky, which, thankfully, was still dark. Good, this meant that she had some time to rest. She looked around and found herself a seat of sorts in the upper branches of one of the trees that surrounded the Red Swamp. She angled herself so that she was looking at where the sky was lightening, to where the sun would be. The place where she was going changed with the seasons, and depended entirely on the placement of the sun at various times of day and from the placement of various landmarks. She knew the general direction, but she needed to be sure; a few degrees off, and she would end up in a very not correct place, and the new recruit would die before she could get to him.

She rested her head against the tree's massive trunk and looked at the few stars left in the sky. Funny, she thought. She could almost see him in those stars. Those three just looked like they made the curve of his left eye... and those four were just like his mouth when he frowned. She could just see him, and she could imagine he was there, in the stars, looking down on her.

She could just imagine him, coming down to her from the heavens. Such a cliché, she knew, but so beautiful. He came down, she thought, and walked to her. She could just see all of him, Tensa Zangetsu in hand, his mouth set just so. She found herself smiling—it was him.

She felt warm, bright, as if his presence could simply make her heart lighter than air. And it felt as if maybe he did change her. She could hear him, his strong voice.

He was right in front of her, now, almost touching her cheek. He was looking into her eyes, the sight alone giving her shivers. "I'll find you," he said. "I'll save you. I promise you, I will." She wanted to tell him no, she wanted to tell him so save himself as she had so many times so long ago, but... she couldn't. The words simply would not, could not come out of her mouth.

He seemed to be glowing. He reached his hand towards her face, cupping her cheek in his hand. She found her eyes closing, tilting her head to that her cheek leaned into his hand. She heard hum chuckling into her ear, felt his breath on her skin. She could feel his warmth, the radiance of it building up. She could almost see him through her eyelids, she knew where he must be. He was positively glowing, and she smiled at the sheer wonder of it all. She opened her eyes to see him again.

Her head hit the back of the tree. The sun was up, shining at her full blast in the face, as the wind blowed and the leaves rustled next to her head.

Orihime sat still for a moment, her face entirely devoid of expression. She stared at the sun as she came back to herself. Then she slowly rose to her feet and stretched, proceeding to leap down to the ground. She checked the sun's reflection, and continued on her way. Her mind was dedicated to her task, almost painfully so. She had no intention of letting herself get carried away. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened to her.

It was a Pterosaurs that got her. It was her own fault, she supposed, as she was carried away, not paying attention to her surroundings as she concentrated entirely on the beat of her heart as she ran through the limbs of the trees. It was foolish of her to count on Haru's help. He wouldn't be able to follow her all over this accursed jungle, he was young. Ah well.

She cursed her luck. As good of a fighter as she was, Orihime hated confrontations of any kind, a part of why she had been appointed to the position of chief Caregiver. She tried to feel out the bird for and Soul Powers—it (She, Orihime learned) didn't have any, which made Orihime feel all the worse. This bird had no idea what it was doing—she was probably just getting food for her chicks.

Chicks. It clicked.

She was breakfast.

Orihime sighed. She hated it when this happened, when she had to do this. Looking behind them, she determined approximately where she had been picked up. Where she wanted to be. She drew her Zanpakuto and pressed the side of the blade against the bird's talon, making sure to to cut it.

She felt sorry for the poor bird.

"Sweep, Kuchikukan" (Destroyer, the Vessel of Destruction).

It only took a moment. The bird seemed to freeze in midair for a moment. Orihime could feel the poor thing, now, all of it. She told the Pterosaurs where to go, and it took her there, set her down gently on the branch where she had been taken from.

The Pterosaurs wanted to know if she could help Orihime any more. She wanted to know if she could protect Orihime, or get her to her destination faster.

Orihime ordered her to go back to her chicks, do do as she would if she had never seen Orihime. The dinosaur was dubious. She didn't want to let her go. Orihime commanded her to, and the dinosaur left—she had been commanded to by the wielder of Orihime's Zanpakuto. She had no choice.

Orihime waited until the dinosaur was on her way, and, once she was out of sight, began running again.

There were no other significant interruptions to Orihime's travel. She had to fight her way out of some fights with a couple of Orangutans, but that was all. She had not needed to release her Zanpakuto again, thank God. She'd found all of her markers, thankfully. It had been an issue before, in which people had missed markers and had to return to the palace without the new recruit. Such disgrace was not, Orihime knew, a fun experience.

And so it was that, four days after she had set out from the Soul Palace, she arrived at her destination, known as the Portal of Reincarnation. A stupid name, really; it was a joke, started a long time ago when someone made the mistake of believing that they had been reincarnated as they had entered through the gate into the Royal Realm. The one who had been sent to collect the new recruit let his think this for a long time, until they got back to the palace, when it became a common joke. In reality, the portal was just a rare patch of grass among the otherwise root-covered ground. But it was a patch or grass that was always moving, as the ground in the Royal Realm was unstable. Thus, the need of the sun to guide people to the portal.

Orihime looked up, to see where the sun was—almost straight overhead. She had perfect timing.

She only had to wait a few minutes before a door of sorts appeared in the air, with a few steps between the doorframe and the ground. There was a knock on the other side—three rapid-fire knocks, three slow knocks, and one more set of three rapid-fire. The code was good, and Orihime went and reached to open the door.

She twisted the knob and pulled, realizing that it was the first time in over fifty years that she had opened a door. That was the prominent thought on her mind as she allowed the dimensions to connect, a feeling of nostalgia. It wasn't until a moment later, when she sensed that the recruit had gone down the steps, that the thought occurred to her to look up and greet him properly.

She looked up, preparing to introduce herself, but he beat her to it. "Hey there, I'm Kurosaki Ichigo, reporting for duty."


	3. Speed

Hey boyos.

First off, I know the last chapter sucked, and I know that this chapter is boring. I'm sorry, but it has to be done. It'll get interesting, I promise.

I should point out as well that this story has a lot of inconsistencies within itself. This is intentional—if you noticed these inconsistencies, good for you, try and remember them. Also, as the chapters go on, it might become inconsistent with the manga. For now, though, it is consistent through the current place in the manga, which is chapter 387. I'll make notes about the significance of the cannon to the manga as it becomes important.

I know this took a while, the house is being remodeled, and I've been doing my homework that I had procrastinated on before.

And thank you to Alice Hattercandy (I think that's what it is, I'm not looking at it at this second) for the one and only review. All sarcasm aside, I appreciate it a lot, and I intent to continue.

Thanks,

Emmy

It was him.

But it couldn't be him. He shouldn't have become a Shinigami, he had died as a Shinigami, the power was supposed to have died with him. He should have been reborn and died by now, living as a normal soul in Soul Society, without Soul Powers. Why was he here?

It couldn't be him, she decided. Not only had he died as a Shinigami, but he had no manners or respect for authority. Ichigo would never say something like "reporting for duty." Ichigo was not the kind of person to be made into a captain—he wasn't a good person for the position. Paperwork didn't suit him, and neither did dealing with those people who had governmental authority. And nobody was ever recruited without having first being made a captain, the one and only exception being Orihime herself, and that was only because of her particular situation. It wasn't him. It couldn't be him.

Reassured by this conclusion, Orihime finally brought herself to look up, as she had been staring at the ground for a few seconds in thought. She gasped.

It _was_ him.

It was undeniable. He was older that he had been since she had seen him, and there were premature grays moving in from his temples, but the color was the same vibrant orange as she saw in her dreams every night. His eyes were the same, the warm brown that they had always been. He was still tall, but now he was so much taller that she could almost see the underside of his chin. His body was muscled, as it had always been, and his mouth... his frown was gone, replaced instead by a tight-lipped line. When she was it, Orihime's heart missed a beat—she knew that expression. She knew what it meant.

He didn't seem to recognize her, at least. That was good, she told herself. That was as it should be. He continued to look down at her as if he was sizing her up, the way he always looked at people he was just meeting and potentially going to be in conflict with. She wanted to sigh, but she restrained herself. If he didn't know her, that she was not going to know him, and there was no point burdening someone who knows you as a stranger.

"Kurosaki Ichigo, you said?" he nodded. "Hello, Ichigo, I am Orihime, chief Caregiver of Royal Realm."

He looked surprised. "Caregiver?"

"Yes," she replied. "I'll explain on the way, we have a great deal of distance to cover." She began running, jumping up to the trees that she was so fond of to begin on her way. He began after her.

"A Caregiver," she began after they had been running for few minutes, "is one of the highest ranking positions in the Royal Realm. We have one of the more difficult jobs that there are."

There was no pride in her voice, no smile to be found. If Ichigo noticed, he didn't say anything. As far as Orihime could tell, he was looking ahead, focused on where he was running, and listening to the words, not the emotions behind them.

She allowed herself to sigh. She was doing that a lot, she noted. Sighing. "It is the job or caregivers to find out as much as we can about Soul Powers and how to manipulate them."

He looked surprised. "So, what are you, a researcher? Like Mayuri?"

She laughed. "Do not compare me to that man. He is a sadist, and I'm amazed that he's still alive, or that you know him." She paused, still chuckling at the idea of Mayuri being a Caregiver. The picture simply did not work. "Is he still the head of research and development, captain of squad 13?"

"Yes," he said. "Though he has a new daughter now. Nemu ran away from him, to the land of the living."

"Nemu ran away?" This was news indeed. "She was a mod, wasn't she? How did she do that?"

"Nobody really knows how she did it, Mayuri included. I know that she went to live with someone, a Quincy. I heard that they got married. He must have had something to do with it."

A Quincy. There were no Quincies. Rather, Orihime corrected herself, there was only one family left of that race, which meant...

Uryuu. He had fallen in love, had gotten married. Orihime thanked the Gods—Uryuu deserved happiness and love, more than Orihime did. And he had gotten it. She glanced up to the sky and flashed it a grin before again concentrating on the path in front of her.

Ichigo continued without noticing her pensive moment. "Actually, Mayuri tried to go and kill her (you know how he is), but I guess the Quincy had almost killed him before, so he backed off. It's something none of us had ever heard of happening before, Mayuri backing down."

She laughed again, and there was silence. For a long while, they were just running. It wasn't until the sun was fading fast that Ichigo returned to their previous topic. "So, what do you spend your time doing, then, Inoue? If you're not a researcher, how do you find these things out?"

"Just because I am not like Mayuri does not mean that I do not research things, I am simply... kinder about how I do it. I, along with my subordinates, spend my time meditating."

"Meditating?"

"For lack of a better term, I admit. Meditating is not the best word to use. I spend my time feeling. The Royal Realm is a very different place than people suspect, very different than any of the other four realms. The Royal Realm is devoted to peace, which is how we select our recruits—not how much they fight, but how much they _like_ to fight, which is why Kenpachi Zaraki will never be recruited. We have no need here for a warmonger.

"Caregivers have the most important job here in the Royal Realm—it is our job to understand everything. In that way, we are researchers. However, we spend our time observing and understanding the environment around us rather than offending and contaminating it as the Gotei 13 Captains do.

"The other part of out duties is to understand how to manipulate the things we observe. For example, I am the most skilled person in the Royal Realm at manipulating souls. Not Soul Powers, but Souls themselves. Each person who is labeled as a caregiver, and, as such, each caregiver has a rank based on what they have the best control over. I am the Chief Caregiver, meaning that I am only one rank below the rank of the Royal Family—if the family was to adopt any time soon, the main candidates would be myself and the other four Chief Caregivers. The current king was a Caregiver, a long time before I came here."

She stopped. She hoped he understood, because there was no better way that she could explain it. The circumstances had changed; She had rank and power. In a straight out fight, Orihime would win, hands down. She could crush him.

"Why was I recruited, then?" He asked. "It's not as if I am and good at thinking and manipulating, only fighting. And it's not like I get along with people particularly well."

She sighed. Now came the hard part, where she had to maintain the facade that the two of them had never met. "I have no idea, Kurosaki. I am not the one who recruited you, that was the Head Captain. He must have seen what we need here in you.

"I should tell you, as well, Kurosaki, that there are positions here in the Royal Realm besides that of being a Caregiver; Caregivers are simply the most important. There are many things that you may become besides the position that I have. Please do not feel any drive to become something that you are not in your own mind—I am a Caregiver because it is something that I am naturally able to do better than most. If you have other natural talents, then that it where you will be needed."

There, she thought. That sounded cold enough, detached. She still sounded like a superior to him, and he would not suspect any familiarity between the two of them.

It was sad that she had to do this. Usually, the recruits loved her. She hated having to be so cold to somebody who, as far as he was aware, had never met her. Had it been any other person, she would have described her actions as heartbreaking. With Ichigo, though, the word didn't even begin the road of accuracy to describe her feelings on the matter.

They continued on in silence, stopping only to rest when the night was too dark for the larger dinosaurs to come out. She refused to allow herself to fall asleep, insisting on staying awake and keeping guard. She didn't want to wake up to find this a dream, nor did she want him to hear her talking in her sleep, one of the few habits that had not left her since she had been alive. She could say some things that were incriminating, to say the least.

She was confused. She was scared. There were another two days of travel before the two of them would be back at the palace, and she could not go that long without sleep. She would have to get some shut-eye in, or else she would collapse, and she could not allow that to happen. And she could not count on her Nakama to help her, they could not cure exhaustion.

She sighed and looked over at his sleeping form. In sleep, his expression was changed, gone from the line that she had seen him wear earlier, and instead changed to an expression that was completely devoid of his mind's influence—something that Orihime could only describe as the epitome of peace. He still liked to sleep on his back, she noticed. She had only seen him asleep twice before. The second time had been in Soul Society, a long time ago. The two of them had been there to be witnesses to Rukia's promotion to the rank of vice-captain. It was a big deal, for Byakuya at least, to let her take the responsibility, but the truth of the matter was that everybody else was gone, dead. There was nobody left to take the position, and Rukia was brave and capable. Soul Society was still not a happy place, by any means, and there was a lot of fear.

The two of them had, before entering the Seireitei, stayed a night with Kukaku Shiba, and had been given a single room. Ichigo had tried to sleep outside, but Orihime hadn't let him, saying that she should sleep outside. The whole situation had simply become ridiculous to the point where Ganju had come into to tell them to just shut up and go to sleep, which Ichigo had done. Orihime, however, found herself unable to sleep the entire night, and instead found herself staring at him despite herself. She had thought the same thing them, that he was beautiful and peaceful.

Back in the forrest, Orihime's eyes were burning. Coming back to her senses, she realized why—she had been staring, her eyes open for a long time, simply watching him breath in and out. He was so... beautiful. It was a strange thing to say about man, but it was true about him; he was beautiful. He was a work of art, a marble stature that had been carved by masters, painted by artisans, and brought to life through the very breath of the Gods. He was art, in mind, body, and soul. In every way, he was beautiful.

He always had been.

Another hour went by like this, Orihime sinking into memories of the past and dreams that were no longer possible, all revolving around the man before her, before he woke up. He gave very little warning that he was about to move, leaving her with only a few moments to look away before his stirring gave way to his opening eye. He looked around, confused as to where he was for the moment, before he saw her, apparently looking towards the sky as it began to lighten—they would have to start moving soon, she knew.

Never looking over at Ichigo, Orihime spoke. "We'll have to leave soon. It's good you woke up on your own, I hate waking up people who are asleep."

He got to his feet, stretching out his hamstrings. He called out his readiness, and the two of them continued on their way, running through the treetops.

The second night was difficult. She nearly fell asleep that night, only keeping awake through physical workouts. She was able to keep herself active until he woke himself up again, and they were on their way.

It wasn't until that afternoon that any significant conversation was restarted. "Why are we running, Inoue? Shouldn't we be using Shunpo? I thought it was faster."

Shit.

She had no idea what to say. What could she say? The truth? No, at least not all of it. What lie would seem plausible? Something about the world that he wouldn't know yet, something about the affects of Shunpo... She could tell him that it was a health risk, but if he could run like this and talk in the meanwhile, he wouldn't but the excuse of being physically unable.

She was out of time, she had to say something.

"I prefer to go without Shunpo," she said. "I try to humble myself by not showing off in that way. Shunpo is not necessary in this place, and I prefer to run. It is also more physically challenging to run for three days than to Shunpo for two. We are not expected for another two days, and we will be there tomorrow, a day early. There is no point in getting there so early, and I do not get to go outside of the palace very often. Any objections?"

There were none. Orihime was relieved.

A truthful answer. Not entirely truthful, she thought, but close enough to be able to get away with. She did want to stay humble, in comparison to him. She did want the workout, to make herself stronger. And they weren't expected for another two days, and they would be there at around noon tomorrow.

They kept running, running beyond the lengths of human endurance. But then, they weren't humans, were they? Not anymore. No, they would never be human again, Orihime mused. It was sad that even in death, she was unable to be free, to rest in peace.

She found herself wishing, as she had so often in the past, that this was not true. She wished that she had been allowed to just succumb to blackness when she died, to be senseless and oblivious, to not exist, just to avoid this pain, of being to close to him, but farther than anybody would ever understand. He didn't remember her, not even a little bit. It was a good thing for him, and she knew that, and was thankful.

Nevertheless, she still found herself trying to run faster than him, just so that he wouldn't be able to see her face and the tears threatening to force themselves to be seen for the first time in two hundred years.


	4. Fright

Hiya,

Thank you to my womping three reviewers. At least it's decent enough, although, people, I have to tell you that as the author, I don't believe you when you say that something is good. I just don't. It's not you, it's me.

Also, if people have questions, ask away, please. Maybe trying to answer you guys will give me ideas for the rest of the plot—as it is, I've got something like 2 plot points (one of which has already been introduced), and everything else is being made up as I go. I'm also trying to make the chapters longer, but as it is, I've been writing a chapter in a single sitting, so I don't know how long they'll end up being. Just know that I'm making the effort.

And I'm sorry for how OoC everybody is, but I think that it is honestly how the characters would react in their given situations. Maybe it's just how I would react, but I can see the original Kubo characters in there.

The song I listened to as I wrote this chapter: Apeman, by The Kinks

Thanks,

Emmy

Orihime was exhausted, bone tired. She couldn't muster up the energy to exercise, and instead had resigned herself to staring at the fire Ichigo had started to stop herself from falling asleep. It wasn't helping very much, and all that happened was the she ended up thinking about the color of the fire as opposed to that of Ichigo's hair. It seemed less vibrant than his was in her memory.

She jerked herself up. The fire was only dim because here eyes had started closing over it. That was not good—she could not afford to sleep. She refused to sleep. She could think for an hour, and she knew that she would not appear weak in front of Ichigo. Never again would she rely on him. Never.

She kept looking into the fire, though this time seeing past it, into the dirt on the other side. Somehow, the way that that dirt lit up with the fire looked just like his eyes, the same many shades of brown, chocolate and warm. Sometimes she thought that she only fell for Ichigo because of his eyes, and how they always reminded her of her favorite sweet.

Her eyes refocussed on the fire in front of her. She was laying on her side, propped up on one of her elbows. That fire... it really did look like his hair. It moved a lot like Ichigo's hair would if it was longer... she shuddered. She had seen Ichigo with long hair, and it was something she had no desire to ever see again. When he had become a hollow... She had lost herself. Well, more importantly, he had lost himself. So, she shivered, she never wanted to see Ichigo with long hair. Never again.

Her gaze began to blur, but she couldn't bring herself to stop from falling asleep. It had been more than three days since she had slept—she needed rest. But she wanted to be awake, she couldn't let Ichigo see her sleep, and if she fell asleep, she wouldn't wake up unless forced to.

She couldn't summon up the will to keep herself awake, and her last waking thought was of the fire, and how close it was to the perfect color of Ichigo's hair...

And then she could see it, his hair, as he looked away from her.

"I don't have to see it," she heard herself saying. See what? She looked down, confused, and saw the iPod in her lap. Ah, that's right; the playlist named Inoue.

We turned to look back to her. "yes you do have to see it, Inoue. You have the right to see it."

She smiled at him, as his own lips went to the shape that they were in when he slept—not frowning, but not smiling either. On him, it was an expression of contention. He was truly fine with her seeing this. But she still felt guilty...

"How about we just listen to it?" she suggested, "That way, I won't have to see it, but I'll still know ehat was on it?"

He gave her a look. "The songs are all in English, you know. You probably won't understand them anyways."

She gave him a fake look of indignation. "Why, Kurosaki-kun, I believe that my class ranking is 3. What is yours, again? Something in the late teens, maybe the twenties?" She let herself giggle—he was frowning again. She loved it when he did that.

"Fine, you'll understand them. Congratulations."

Now he was being sarcastic. Almost cuter, although almost was a key word. She couldn't hold back her gleeful laughter.

"Oh, so now you're going to laugh at me?" He sounded angry, but he was smiling. Oh, that smile. Such a rare thing, it almost never made an appearance, but when it did... oh, how she so loved his smile, his grin. When she had first met him, she thought it looked like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, but that wasn't right. No, she later realized that he just looked like a boy. He looked happy when he smiled. He looked perfect when he smiled.

She let out a little scream as he jumped on top of her, forcing her back to the grass as he held himself up above her. She was still laughing a little, and he was still grinning. Oh, he was smiling, and oh, how happy that made her. "What makes you think that you are allowed to laugh at me?"

She smiled mockingly up at him, "Oh, I don't know... you haven't killed me yet for doing it, or punched me like you always do to Ishida-kun and Renji-kun."

She thought that she had made a valid point—after all, those two did laugh at him, and all the time. Somehow, his response always involved hurting them in some way, be it a punch, a kick, or a swipe from Zangetsu. But, somehow, whenever she laughed at him, he smiled. He let loose the grin.

But he wasn't grinning, not anymore. He slowly got off of her, laying by her side, letting all of his weight fall onto one his elbows. The arm that wasn't holding up his head was on the ground between the two of them, playing with a few of the strands of hair that had found themselves there. "Orihime."

She gasped—he never called her by her first name. She had always been Inoue.

"You know that I could never hurt you, right? I... I could never hurt you, Orihime."

She found her heart melting, her face relaxing from a confused line to her usual smile. "I know, Ichigo. I know exactly what you are and aren't capable of. I know you could never hurt me."

He looked back, relieved. He allowed his body to roll, to that his stomach was on the ground, but his face turned to look at her. "Do you want to hear it?"

She looked at him, and, for the countless-ith time that day, found herself smiling, grinning broadly at him. "Here we go," he said, as he got the iPod. "Ready?"

"Of course. What's number one?"

"It's called Inoue."

Orihime was more than a little bit confused. "It's called Inoue? I thought that was the playlist."

"INOUE!" he said again, louder. But was scary, and she found herself shaking some at his tone. Why was he yelling at her.

"Inoue!"

She jerked awake, her head coming up in one movement that caused her neck to crick. "Ow..."

"Inoue, are you all right?"

Orihime looked up (as well as she could with her neck in its current condition), and there he was... Ichigo. Crap. She must have said something in her sleep.

"Yes," she heard herself answer him. "I'm alright, I just cricked my neck. Just give me a moment, please."

Ne nodded and walked away, and Orihime called out her Nakama and healed her neck, calling them back to her in a matter of seconds, crick healed and hair pins in place, so that by the time Ichigo looked around, she was standing up and brushing off her clothing. She looked at the sky.

She hadn't slept long, it turned out. The sky was only just starting to lighten. Good.

She looked over to Ichigo, who was standing uncharacteristically silent behind her now. "I'm sorry that I was asleep, I hope I didn't disturb you."

He nodded to her. "Not at all, Inoue. Not at all."

She smiled at him. "Very well then, it's time to go. We'll be there by something like midday." He nodded, and the two of them were off.

They had only been going for a few minutes before Akiko appeared. Ichigo, of course, had no idea who Akiko was, and proceeded by removing Zangetsu and preparing to attack, but Orihime stopped him. Akiko was not dangerous, not anymore. It was almost sad, but there was no helping it—Akiko would never hurt Orihime or another person again.

"Don't attack her, Kurosaki. She will not harm you, not if you're with me."

He looked more than a little bit confused. "What do you mean, she won't harm me because I'm with you? She's a Tetradactyl! Of course she's hurt us!"

Orihime shook her head sadly. "No, she is incapable of hurting me."

Confused was now and understatement—Ichigo was completely lost. "How could she be unable to hurt you?" he was looking at her as if she was insane, which, as far as he was concerned, she was. "And who says her name is Akiko?"

Akiko huffed out some air, and Orihime laughed. Typical of her. "She told me her name."

Ichigo was astounded. "How? Can she talk?"

Orihime quickly looked away. "No,"she said quietly. "No, Akiko cannot talk. My knowing her has to do with my powers, my being a Caregiver. I..."

She couldn't tell him. Not everything, not about Kuchikukan...

"I am simply very good at dealings with souls besides those of humans. Akiko here is very much my friend, or at least that's how I think of her, and she me, to an extent." Once again, a not complete truth. She hated doing that to Ichigo. "We are bonded through my powers, so she will never attack someone who appears to be my ally. However," and now she came to it, "if you, or anyone, tries to hurt me, she and many others will know and come running to my aid. Or flying, I suppose, in Akiko's case. They are part of why I am so dangerous. They are a part of me, in the simplest way of saying it.

"I am a chief Caregiver, as you know," she continue, moving over to rub Akiko's face. "One of five. I am not even the most powerful as the five of us. It is best that you understand now, Kurosaki—your blunt strength will not be worth as much here as it was in Soul Society. Here, your reiatsu is average. You must understand that the Royal Realm is dangerous, and that many of the beings here are able to kill you. Humans are not the only beings with soul powers, and do not be so ignorant as to assume that animals are the same or even any less powerful that humans—they aren't."

All this was said looking towards Akiko's face, but as she finished, she turned back to him. "There are more dangerous things than me, Kurosaki. There are bears here who could kill me with a single blow, just as I, if I truly desired, could kill you with one strike. Such a thing is not so hard to fathom."

"What's the point of telling me this, Inoue? Are you just trying to undermine me?"

She laughed a cold, ironic sort of laugh, the kind that came from her a lot nowadays. "No, Kurosaki, I am not trying to undermine you." She turned away from him again, and faced Akiko. "I am trying to frighten you."

The conversation was over, at least the conversation with Ichigo. He understood when he had been dismissed. He turned away as Orihime continued stroking the dinosaur's face ad waited for her to make the announcement that they were once again on their way to the Palace. When nothing happened for a minute or two, he just got angry. "When are we going? I thought we had a lot of ground to cover."

"We do," he heard, "But we have some help."

He turned around to see Orihime perched on the dinosaur's back. "Oh, hell no."

she smiled a smile that was rare on her—it was cocky.

"Oh, hell yes."


	5. Power

BOO!

I feel like I should tell you guys about some details that need explained: Ichigo is not an old man, and Orihime is no longer in her teens. Ichigo has simply gone prematurely gray, something that happens to a lot of guys when they hit their thirties. Physically, Ichigo is something like 32, and Orhime is somewhere in her mid to late twenties. There is a reason for this, but keep in mind that this is not some jailbait fic.

This fic deals with very long periods of time. It's been two hundred years, give or take, from the stuff that we're reading about now. As time passes, I'll try to keep it's passage clearly signaled. Just know that this is a large-scale story, and time plays an important role, kind of like the river in Huckleberry Finn.

If you haven't read Huckleberry Finn, go read it. Now, before you read anything else here. Please, do yourself the favor and understand all of the references that people make to it.

I know it's been a while, sorry. Life caught up with me, and this chapter sucked the first four times, so I kept deleting and starting over. I don't like this chapter that much, but I still kinda hope you guys do. I know it's confusing, but it will make sense.

Still cannon through this week's English manga release.

Cheers,

Emmy

'Mistress...'

'Yes, Akiko?'

'Why didn't you let me kill this man when I first saw him?'

'He was with me, Akiko, and we weren't fighting. Why would you kill him?'

'He hurt you, mistress.'

'You know I don't like it when you call me mistress, Akiko. Why must you always call me that?'

'Because you are my mistress, mistress, just like you are avoiding the subject at hand. He hurt you, so why can't I kill him?'

she sighed out loud, vaguely wondering if Ichigo had noticed... or cared, for that matter. 'He did not mean to hurt me, Akiko, nor does he know that he did it. I... my being hurt was the result of my own thoughts and actions, and it would be wrong for him to die for my mistakes.'

'I still want to kill him, mistress.'

'Please don't try, Akiko. If you were to try and kill him, I would side with him, and I am entirely too fond of you to be happy about killing you. Isn't enough that I already... well... destroyed you?'

'You did not destroy me, mistress, you gave me a new life. You make me better, gave me presence of mind. I would never go against your wishes, none of us could, nor would be want to.'

Orihime scoffed. 'I am not so wonderful, Akiko. I destroyed you, just like I have destroyed hundreds of others.'

'You did not want to, mistress, you had no choice. You were defending yourself from us.'

'not always. And now you are all trapped with me, stuck in my pitiful example of a mind. It's horrible, I wish there was a way to take it back.

'I do not, mistress. I am glad that you took me as you did. I am and always shall be happy to serve you.'

'but you do not know any better than to serve me, Akiko.'

'No, I don't. But I don't want to know. As humans say, ignorance is bliss.'

Orihime didn't know how to respond, so she allowed them to continue on in silence. It wouldn't be too much longer, now; She could feel the palace coming, though she couldn't see it yet.

'You love him, don't you?'

Orihime couldn't bring herself to lie. Akiko would know either way. 'I loved him, a long time ago, when we were both still alive. He can't remember me, though I remember him.'

'That's how he hurt you, isn't it? He didn't love you back.'

'It's not that he didn't love me... he wasn't emotionally mature enough to know for sure. He hadn't thought about it, and before he really could... he died.'

More silence. Then...

'He's the one that you're always thinking about, isn't he?'

'Yes, he is.'

'Do you still love him?'

What a question. And what an answer that she had to give. 'I love who he was, but I don't know if I love him anymore. I don't know what he's like any more. This is the first time I've seen him in more than 200 years. Who can tell?'

They were silent again.

"I will protect him as I would you, mistress. It is your wish that he lives, so I will do my best to see that that happens.'

'Thank you, Akiko.'

Soon thereafter, they landed, and Orihime and Ichigo slipped off her back. Orihime waved goodbye to the dinosaur and turned back to Ichigo. "Ready, Kurosaki?"

"Of course, Inoue."

"lets go and get your assignment."

In the end, Ichigo was assigned to exactly where Orihime had assumed he would be assigned: the Royal Guard. She was almost glad of that; she wouldn't have to see him everyday. In fact, she would rarely see him at all, thank goodness.

Well, it's not that she didn't see him so much as he didn't see her. She saw him constantly—almost every day. Her... friends... watched him whenever he went to train, and she, under the guise of meditation, found her mind in theirs as they watched him fight and train.

Time passed in this way, some forty years. She still dreamed of him every night, but they were different now, more intense. Maybe it was because she saw him nowadays, but she started imagining the two of them being... well, intimate was a word for it.

She had no right to think that way about him, she decided. She would not act on her feelings. And it was in this state of mind that Orihime passed sixty years of her life, dreaming about Ichigo Kurosaki, what he had been, what he was now, and what the two of them might be together, or rather might have been.

Her morning ritual changed very little in that time. She still woke reluctantly, though not as slowly, as she had before—not, instead of confusing the dreams with reality, she often found herself jerking awake, hot and sweaty, with her hand clenched above her head and her legs tangled in the bed clothes.

She still didn't allow herself to cry, not when she could help it. It happened every now and again, but she managed to keep her image clean—it would not do to appear weak before her subordinates, who needed her as a leader.

In sixty years, Orihime had meaningful conversations with two people: Hikifune and Kuchikukan. Hikifune was, as always, something of a sister to Orihime, and the two of them spent a lot of time at night simply talking. Perhaps the conversations weren't meaningful, but they always made her feel better.

Her first conversation with Kuchikukan was agonizing.

"He remembers you, mistress."

No. No. No, no, no, nonononono. "He can't remember me. He died as a shinigami, he should not be able to remember me."

"He remembers you, mistress."

"No!" She was angry. There was no way that he could remember her—he would have said something, he would have hinted, he would have done something to let her know. He would have said something. He was too direct, too prideful to not say anything.

"He called you Inoue, mistress. You introduced yourself as Orihime. There is no other conclusion besides that he had met you before, and the only way that that could be is if he remembers you."

"No."

it was more of a sob this time, a weak resistance to a seemingly undeniable fact. Her knees gave out, though she did not fall—she couldn't really fall here, in this world. Her inner world had its own laws, and falling was not something that those laws allowed for.

"He could have heard of me when he was in Soul Society, somebody could have mentioed me while he was there, like Retsu or Shunsui, or even Jushiro. There were way for him to know my name without remembering me from when we were alive."

She was grasping at straws, an obvious fact to Kuchikukan, the vessel of destruction, that woman who looked at Orihime with such a lack of emotion...

"Mistress, if he had heard of you, he would have confirmed his suspicions. If he remembered you, he would have had reason to be cautious and given his every effort into not making you suspicious. Perhaps he was simply doing the same thing that you are doing."

Orihime was sobbing. "Why must you call me mistress? Why do you, all of you, call me mistress?" The last part was a scream to the sky, or ground, depending on how you look a it. As she screamed, they all came from the land that lay above their mistress's head. They started as a tint, mistakable for dark clouds, and then became a haze, moving towards the two women who were standing in the stars. They came as if they had been called, and perhaps they had been.

They came close, until they were all there around her, blotting out any sight of her surroundings. All that Orihime could see was the faces of her "friends," as they tried to help her, to please her. And Kuchikukan, that woman all in white, always devoid of emotion, with a blank face, staring at her.

The taste of salt told Orihime that she was crying. It always happened when she came here, to her own inner world. She always found herself in agony over what she had done to find herself, and escape at the same time.

It always made her cry to see the souls that she had destroyed. There were so many. Whenever she visited, she made it a point to count, to learn their names, to speak with them. They had no choice, they were here because she had been weak and unable to kill them, unable to control herself.

She looked at Kuchikukan, at the chains that the woman wore.

"How many?" she asked.

"Three hundred and twenty four."

Orihime felt a stab in her heart, and looked down towards her knees. It might not have been her heart, it occurred to Orihime. She didn't have a heart, that's why she was here in the first place, because she had needed to learn how to be heartless. So, she concluded, there was a sharp pain in the middle of her chest, where a normal person would have a heart, just not her. Three hundred and twenty four. So many people who had been destroyed. Three hundred and twenty four... So many.

She looked back up at Kuchikukan. "Why do you call me mistress?"

The woman smiled a sad smile, one that shocked Orihime to the core—it was one of the first times that she had ever suspected that her cruel, ruthless zanpakuto had any emotions at all. "I call you mistress because you are my mistress, mistress. I call you mistress because I bear these chains for you, so that you may go and add links as you see fit and necessary. You are my mistress, no more explanation is needed."

The tears had stopped. The souls had backed away, gone back to the planet that rested somewhere above Orihime's head, their mistress's head.

"Why did you call me here, Kuchikukan?"

"Simply to show you what you missed, mistress."

"Which is that Ichigo remembers me?"

"Yes, mistress. Ichigo remembers you; Zangetsu remembers you, or at least your nakama."

"Has Zangetsu told him anything? I haven't gotten any readings on that old man."

Kuchikukan closed here eyes for a moment, her brow wrinkled in concentration. "No, I don't think that Zangetsu has told him anything."

Relief swept through Orihime like a wave over a forrest fire. Ichigo did not know of her sword. Of Kuchikukan. Of her power.

Thank goodness.

"What will you do, mistress?"

A good question, one that deserved a good answer. But an answer was not something that Orihime was sure that she had.

"I will distance myself. I won't let my desires from two hundred years ago hinder him now. All that I ever did in the past hurt him—I should at least save him in death."

"yes, mistress," Kuchikukan nodded, and disappeared before Orihime's eyes, leaving her eyes just opening in the morning, the first in several months that left her less than lustful.

And Orihime, as she had done for the past two hundred years, began her morning routine.

And her life continued that way for sixty years, before anything changed. And though the change was long overdue, Orihime found herself wishing that it had waited just a little bit longer.


	6. Strength

Bonjour,

I keep forgetting to mention this, but Akiko's name means Autumn (Aki) Child (Ko). Originally, she was going to be a monkey, but at that point, Orihime had been running for like three chapters, and that was bugging me. And Hikifune, for those of you who don't remember, was the captain of Squad 12 before Kisuke.

Now we're 260 years out from where the manga is, sixty years after Ichigo's arrival. I know that the timing last chapter was confusing, but it was supposed to go back and forth in time. I told you last chapter, time in this story is practically a character.

And thank you so much to the people who give me reviews. You have no idea how wonderful it is to get those from you guys, to know that people take the time to think my story through. Especially Crystal Dawn, who has sent me a review on each of the last three chapters. Thank you! And all of the questions that people have asked me have answers that will be answered. A few of them are the inconsistencies that I mentioned earlier on, that are meant to be where they are.

And one more question—does anybody know the difference between a hit and a view? I only ask because says there's a difference, and I can't figure out what it is.

Ciao,

Emmy

Sixty years into Ichigo's stay in the Royal Realm, he was promoted. He went from being a guard of the realm to a Caregiver's guard. Specifically, he was assigned to the the chief Caregivers. To Orihime.

When Orihime heard the news, her thought were summed up in about a single word. Shit.

She couldn't reverse this—it was a recommendation, by the prince, no less, who was the head of the guard. If he said that Ichigo was chief Caregiver guard material, than he was, and he was a member of her guard.

It was entirely unnecessary, Orihime thought, for more than one reason. The guard was pointless, all things considered—any chief caregiver could kill his or her own guard in a matter of seconds with hardly any effort. If the chief Caregivers were that strong, what was the point of giving them a guard?

She knew there was a point, of course. She understood the point very well. She was just griping because of what she really had a problem with.

Why did it have to be Ichigo?

Why did she have to interact with him? If he was in her personal guard, she would have to develop a relationship with him, a relationship of trust and vague guidance. How could she do that to him?

Especially if he remembered her.

But Orihime didn't even want to think about that. She didn't want to imagine what he must think of her.

Her thoughts went around in circles for a long time as she griped and groaned and complained about her situation. In the end, though, there was no out from where she was, and she knew that perfectly well.

Shit.

She was to greet him the next day, she was told. Introduce yourself, get to know him, and continue with your duties the following day were the official orders. She would just have to follow those orders.

Oh, god, she hoped that he wouldn't remember her.

That was her last thought before she fell asleep, fully dressed, on top of her bed.

Her dreams that night were dreams that hadn't been on her mind in over two hundred years.

She remembered destroying that man, that demon, that abomination. She had taken him, and told him exactly what she wanted him to do for her, his mistress.

She could hear he own voice. "My wish," and she remembered pausing for a moment, to catch her breath, or something of the like. "is that you die."

He had died. Right then and there, in front of her. His heart ached so at the thought of displeasing his mistress, that it gave out and killed him. It was over in a matter of seconds.

Orihime saw a flash. It hadn't happened in real life, only in her mind, a sign of how little everything else that had happened mattered. How easily everything was forgotten, and yet, how every detail could be recalled.

She felt herself looking back, turning to look back at her home for one last time. And she remembered seeing him.

No, she corrected herself, it wasn't really him.

He was laying on the top of a building, on his back. His neck was bent unnaturally, his sword clasped loosely in his hand. It was Zangetsu that was there, but in the knife-like shape, not the black sword.

Orihime felt herself moving forwards without moving. The portal had her, there was no choice. But she looked back, trying to see him better.

She saw his eyes.

They were looking right at her. He was hundreds of yards away from her, but somehow, she could tell that they were aimed straight for her.

And she saw them go blank, turn glassy.

She vaguely remembered hearing screaming, noticing some rain even though it was a perfectly sunny day. She didn't realize for a long time afterward that it had been her own screams and rain from her eyes.

She tried to run to him. She tried so hard to just be out of that damned portal, the black hole that was sucking her into a new and unknown realm.

She ran, her legs straining against the gravity that pulled her to her new home. She reached for him, but he was so far away. She wanted to see him so much, but her eyes were tired, and they seemed to be stinging anyways.

Her eyes opened to his face for a final time, tears streaming down her cheeks, gazing at his dead eyes, his pale body, his incorrectly-angled neck. She saw his uniform and his sword, she saw his sweat and his blood and his drool and even what could have been a tear.

She never found out, as the blackness closed around in front of her, and took her still fighting and screaming away to her soon-to-be home.

She was still screaming when she woke up a few moments later.

She hated that dream. Oh, how she loathed it, reminding her of the mistakes that she had made in her past, how she had killed him, even though she had only left to keep him alive and himself.

She sat up, her legs stretched in front of her and her fore head resting on her hand. She hadn't had that dream in a long time. She had managed to escape it for a while, but it was back.

Why did it have to be back? Why now?

But she was lying to herself, she knew. She knew perfectly well why the dream was back, why it was happening now and not sixty years earlier. She knew everything that she insisted on asking herself. Why was she asking?

The answer was simple: because she was weak.

She hated herself. She hated herself so much that is was boiling her blood, her hands becoming fists, all her muscled tensing. She hated her weakness. She hated that she wasn't the person that she used to be, the cheerful little girl that could handle everything that the world could possibly conceive to throw at her. She missed being ignorant, she missed the strength that came with being ignorant.

And she hated herself even more for not being able to move on. She hated that she spent so much time hating herself. She hated that she spent so much time lying to herself in order to get the strength to survive each day. She hated that her days were filled with spying and her nights with guilty pleasures. She hated the world for doing this to her, She hated her abilities for making her who she now was, for changing her as they had.

She hated Ichigo. She hated what he had done to her, how low he had made her sink without even lifting a finger. She hated that she was so weak as to let herself be controlled by a man who didn't give a damn about her. And she hated herself for thinking such a thing about the man that she loved so much.

She had done that to him.

Orihime collapsed onto her back, rolling into the fetal position, hugging her knees to her chest. She was sobbing, her body still hot and bothered from her dream, but not in the way that she would have preferred. She bit the cloth of the white and read cloth on the hakama that covered her knees, and allowed herself to scream. She screamed her life out, whether for a second or hours, she didn't know or care. It didn't matter. All that mattered to Orihime was that right then, she hated herself so much that she couldn't hold back.

She screamed, and as her lungs emptied themselves and the tears ran down her face and onto her sheets, she was capable of only two thoughts.

Hate.

I did that to him.

And the agony that went through her was so direct, so overwhelming, that she almost believed that she had a heart again, but only because she believed that nothing else could hurt so much.

She was crying now, bawling outright, like a baby. She didn't even have the strength to do something about it, even to kill herself and end the pain right now, spare herself the agony and all of the souls that were trapped within her.

But, she told herself, if she was to get even a scratch on her, her guard would know and come rushing in. They would save her life, without a doubt, and she would have accomplished nothing but a lack of faith in her sanity by her suboordinates.

But that wasn't the truth.

She was too weak, that was the truth. And she hated herself even more.

By ten minutes later, though, the screaming had stopped. Half an hour after that, the crying was done, and twenty minutes after that, Both Orihime and her chambers looked presentable enough to show Ichigo into later on when he came to report for duty.

She looked at the clock at her bedside table. It was three forty in the morning, a clear indicator of just how little sleep she had gotten.

She sat down at her vanity, looking into her reflection's eyes.

Those eyes, she thought, were astounding.

They looked the way that her eyes had looked when she was still alive, a human in the Realm of the Living. The angle, The size, the color, everything about her eyes was exactly the same. They were eyes that could hold any emotion but somehow look exactly the same.

It was good that she had those eyes, she mused. She had her very own personal poker face, Guy Fawkes mask, hell, even a hollow mask. It didn't matter, because her expressions never changed. Not anymore.

She looked at her hair, her long, auburn hair that she still hadn't cut since she had been alive. She still wore it down, as a symbol for her faith in Tatsuki. It was a rather pointless gesture at this point, she thought, as Tatsuki was probably dead and reborn by now.

She gathered her hair all onto one of her shoulders. It would be more convenient that way, she decided, if she wore it over her shoulder. Not uncomfortable, but definitely not in the way.

Yes, it was time for a change.

She started looking around her room, trying to find something, anything that would keep her hair in a ponytail of sorts. There was nothing but her nakama, which would stay, as they always had been, right by her temples. In the end, all that she found was a silver chain that held a pendant given to her by Hikifune as a welcome gift. Orihime had been Hikifune's subordinate, and it had been the polite thing to do at the time.

The pendant was a strawberry. Orihime had tried to refuse it at first, but given in eventually. Hikifune was a truly wonderful woman, after all. "I give everybody strawberries," she said, "They were my favorite food from when I was in the Rukongai. I spent so much time getting bread, that whenever fruit came along, it was heaven. So everybody here gets a strawberry to show that they're in heaven." She smiled. "Particularly people whose hair clashes so violently with red like this."

Orihime chuckled at the memory. Her hair had somehow been a major part of the procedure. Yes, she thought to herself, this will work.

She brushed out her hair, which was very long at this point, and braided it over one of her shoulders. Her hair was very thick, and the resulting braid would have caused some annoyance from Rapunzel. It took her several tries, though—Orihime hadn't made an effort with her hair in the better part of three hundred years.

She took the silver chain and wove it into the braid. She clasped the chain together so that it wouldn't fall out, and left the pendant dangling from the chain's opposite end that laid on the front part of the braid.

She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked... bestial, she decided was the word for it. Primal. Strong.

Strength was exactly what she needed.


	7. Density

Hey,

I get the feeling that people didn't like the last chapter so much. In case it wasn't obvious, Orihime very nearly killed herself. Thoughts of death have the tendency to revolve around hate and emptiness, this was my exploration of the ideas of self hate that drive people to kill themselves.

I hate to sound so cold and clinical about the subject, but... there you have it.

So you know, this is my third revision of this chapter. This one sucked a few times, like... chapter 5, I think it was?

The Von Trapp family is the family from The Sound of Music. If you've never seen it, go and watch it. Now. You won't get my reference to it otherwise.

Also--I don't know if I've mentioned Orihime's guards before, but know that Ichigo is the fourth. if that contradicts something I said earlier, my bad.

I've been obsessing over this song lately... it's called Roses, by Outkast. Hella good song.

Bon appetite'

Emmy

He walked up to her during breakfast as she sat with Hikifune and one of each of their guards. None of the chief caregivers were ever really allowed to go around without a guard behind them. Even when a caregiver was in his or her own chamber, there were at least two guards on duty, although Orihime had fewer guards than the other Chief Caregivers, being the youngest by some two hundred and fifty years.

It was why her being on her own to bring in a recruit had been such a scandal.

"Chief Caregiver Inoue, I'm Kurosaki Ichigo. I'm pleased to be meeting you again. Please treat me well."

Orihime looked up, pretending to have only just noticed him. It was so uncharacteristic. "Hello, Ichigo, it's nice to see you again." Akiko gave a harrumph. 'I didn't ask you, Akiko.'

'Of course, mistress. Forgive me.'

Orihime turned back to Hikifune. "Please forgive me, but I'm going to show my new guard his duties. Hiroshi," she said, looking to her own guard, "You can eat and then go get some sleep, I know you've been awake since last night. Ichigo, here, can protect me if anything happens." She paused. "Tell Arata to do the same, please. God knows it's boring watching guard over my bedroom."

"Yes, of course, Orihime. Kaito and I were right about to leave ourselves."

"Are you sure, Inoue Sama?"

"Of course I'm sure, you need the rest. And please don't call me Sama, I'm not such a lady. Report back at the time when you would begin your next shift."

"Yes, Inoue Sama. Thank you, I will go now." He bowed and left.

"If you'll excuse us, then, Hikifune, Kaito." She stood up and began to walk, gesturing for Ichigo to come and walk along side her. He jogged to catch up and took his position.

"Ichigo," she began, "Where do you live?"

"With the rest of the Realm Guard, Chief Caregiver, in the barracks complex."

Of course he lived in the barracks complex, that was a stupid question. "Can you take me there? We need to move your things to your new apartment."

"I have a new apartment?"

"Of course you have a new apartment, or else would you be able to guard me? The barracks and my room are on practically opposite sides of this palace. Plus, this is a promotion: you have a nicer apartment, not just a room now. It comes with your abilities."

She paused; she thought she'd forgotten something. "Oh, and please call me Orihime or Inoue, none of this 'Chief Caregiver' business." There we go.

"Yes, Orihime."

Thank god he was lagging behind her a little bit, or else he would have noticed the look on her face when he said her name like that. The tone had lowered to something like a grunt. It was so... well... erotic. Just like her dreams, when her never called her Inoue, like he had always done when they were human and alive, but Orihime, in a low voice that was deep and gravelly and unsteady, just like his voice had just been.

A wave of hate swept through her. How dare she? Thinking about these things when he had only followed her orders to call her by her name. She was pathetic, weak. She hated herself.

But now was not the time, and she quickly fought her face back to it's normal look, emotionless and serene. Now was not the time.

"Thank you, Ichigo." She didn't look at his as she said it. She didn't want to see him reacting to her calling him by his first name. She didn't want to know if he actually remembered her. "I dislike formality."

"Of course, Orihime." His voice was normal now, without the lusty timber it had carried before. Thank God; she didn't think that she would be able to keep a straight face again.

The continued walking in silence until they arrived in the barracks. Well, they all called it the barracks, and that's how it functioned, but it's original purpose had been a nursery. Like the rest of the palace, The barracks was constructed by dinosaurs, who, due to their size, were unable to use mechanisms like doors. Instead, the entire palace used long and winding hallways to separate rooms.

The barracks, however, was organized strangely. The main hallway, the one that connected the rooms to each other, was a huge circle, with smaller hallways that each led to individual rooms all on one side, so that all of the rooms were on the outside of the giant inner circle, each of which had, in the past, been occupied by a young dinosaur who was not yet old enough to be a sociological advantage. In the middle of the huge circle, there was only one room, in which the nanny, for lack of a better term, lived.

There were dozens of these circles, many of them stacked on top of each other going up some dozen floors. Each "nanny" had as many as fifty rooms under her care, so there were a lot of rooms. This complex was what made up the barracks, where all of the members of the guard lived. The two of them walked up four stories to the circle where Ichigo lived, going into his room.

It looked very familiar.

Well, not really. It was a circle inside, not the rectangle that Ichigo's old room had been when he was alive. There was no window, the room was a different color, more yellowish than Ichigo's old room had been. But she couldn't hold back a strange sense of.. well...

"Deja vu!"

"Huh?" Ichigo was surprised, of course.

Shit.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I just got the strangest sense of Deja Vu."

Ichigo nodded. "Of course."

"So, what would you like to take with you? I can promise you that anything will fit with more than enough room."

He looked around the room. There wasn't much there, to be honest. Just like his old room. There was a bed, a small rug, and a desk with what looked like photos sitting all over it. Orihime was tempted to look, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She really was a coward.

"Just the desk, Orihime," she heard from behind her. Ichigo, she realized. Answering her question.

"Only the desk?"

"yes, please."

"Okay, then. Please move, I'll carry it."

"You'll...?"

But before Ichigo could finish his sentence, Orihime had put a hand to her temple, and Hinagiku, Baigon, and Lily had made a shield underneath the desk, lifting if off the ground.

"Shall we go, Ichigo?"

"Yes, Orihime."

And they were walking to Orihime's home, neither of them knowing what to say, and neither of them content to be silent. The result was an almost physically noticeable density to the air that surrounded them.

They were silent for the entire journey.

"This is where you're going to be staying, Ichigo," Orihime finally said when they reached his apartment. It was huge—at least compared to what we was used to. It was actually bigger than Orihime's own room, but she preferred it that way. Too much empty space makes places sad and empty. She hated sad, empty places. They reminded her too much of her room in Hueco Mundo. Here, at least, there wasn't a window to have bars on.

"Where do you want the desk, Ichigo?"

"along here, please." He pointed to the wall that also went along the head of his bed. Orihime felt a pang of familiarity—it was exactly what his old room had looked like.

She set the desk down and called back her nakama, who came at once, reforming to the clips that had not moved from her temples. They still called her Orihime, not mistress. Ad a good thing that was, too; if they called her mistress, Orihime thought that she would have cracked.

She didn't look too long at the desk. She didn't want to see the pictures.

"Now then, Ichigo, would you like to settle yourself in here, or would you like to get an idea of your duties? You don't come on shift until midnight tonight, so you can take some time to get yourself acquainted."

"I'll get a feel of my duties, if you wouldn't mind, Orihime." Was it her imagination, or did he take a little bit too long to answer?

"Very well, we'll start with a tour of my room."

It was all so formal. So unlike the two of them, at least as they had been in life. She hated it, all of this tension.

She just stopped herself from sighing. It was her own fault anyways, and now was not the time. She had to show Ichigo his job.

"Follow me, then," Orihime said, and she led Ichigo into the main hallway.

"I've never seen a hallway like this one in the palace," Ichigo said after a few moments. "Why is it so... straight?"

He'd noticed.

"The place where I live was designed for a reason, just like the barracks was originally meant to be a nursery. My home," What was now her home, anyways, "was originally a giant nest.

"You see, Jut like different dinosaur species got their own floors and circles for their young, each species kept their eggs in one place, so that they would be easier to guard. The room that I use is the room that originally held eggs. Because of that, there are two entrances, though they're right next to each other. Also, the hallways around here, as you seem to have noticed, are straighter than almost anywhere else in the palace. The apartments all around—like the one that you live in now—were originally meant to sneak out the eggs if the ever got attacked, which is why there are so many walls inside—it's meant to confuse anybody who doesn't know their way around. It's why all of the apartments have at least four exits, one to the hallway, one to the outside of the complex, and two to the other apartments that are next to it on either side. It's also why this hallway is straight, so that it's harder for any attackers to tell which opening the egg carriers went into. There aren't any passageways inside of these apartments either, which is how they were designed."

"Why was eggs being stolen such a problem?"

"There were many species of dinosaur that lived primarily on the eggs of other species. It was a necessary precaution."

They were almost at the entrance to Orihime's room now. Though technically she had two rooms, she only used one of them—the other had too many entrances. It had been designed to be an entry hall of sorts, but there was just not enough privacy to use it as a bedroom. She used it as a place to eat with her guards.

They walked through the opening into Orihime's room—a hole in the wall, which Orihime usually kept covered with a French changing screen—and entered the room that was Orihime's home.

It was massive.

The place where they entered from was a corner, which was one of the two square sides of the room. Ichigo could guess that she other corner, which was to his left, had the other entrance to the chamber. The wall that continued straight in front of him corrected to the back wall in a curve, so that the room only had two corners, where the "doors" were. It was the kind of room that the Von Trapp family would have parties in.

The floor was covered with rugs. Not in the disarrayed, Bedouin-esque way, but just in the way that had thirty rugs all arranged so that there was hardly and visible floor anywhere. It was homey, it warmed the room up.

There was a bed along one of the long sides they turned into a curve. On the opposite wall, there was a vanity with a mirror. There was a bookshelf, a couch, and a table. One of the rounded corners had a countertop that had a sink, a stove, and drawers. There were double ovens, even a refrigerator. Old habits die hard, Orihime thought ruefully—she had never grown out of her love and constant need for strange food. The other rounded corner had a curtain drawn around it, which Ichigo could only assume held a bathtub or shower.

All in all, it was a beautiful room. There was light coming from light fixtures on the ceiling, much of it focused on the places where people would spend time—the kitchen, the couch, the vanity, the table, and the shower. It was the kind of place that needed a woman's touch.

"This is where I live."

Ichigo jumped. He must have been absorbed in his own thoughts.

"You will have twelve hour shifts, and get twelve hours off at a time. There are always two guard on duty at a time, so half way through your shift, your partner will be relieved. You will be relieved by the person who comes after you. With your time off, you may do whatever you want, though I would advise that you get some sleep and eat.

"Also, when you guard me when I'm asleep, you may be either in my room or in the chamber outside. I don't care, but please don't come in when I'm getting changed." she stopped here and chuckled. "Akiko would be very mad if you were to walk in on that."

Ichigo gave a nervous laugh. He remembered Akiko.

Good man.

"Do you understand your duties?"

He nodded. "Yes, Orihime.

"Good. There are some other things, but I'll tell them to you later. For now, though, I want you to come with me to the training grounds."

"The training grounds? Why?"

Orihime turned around and smiled. "I want to see how well you can fight."


	8. Fight

Yo,

I know the last chapter was slow. All of the details about design have been bouncing around in my head for weeks, an I thought it was just too cool to not tell you guys, though now that I think about it, that was bit conceited of me. Oh well, too late now.

So you understand my dedication to this story, I'm writing this instead of an essay that's due on monday. That I haven't read the book for yet...

ouch.

I know that this chapter is a little bit short, but I think it's good enough to make up for the last one, and it's a quick update, so grin and bear it.

And! At the end of the first volume of Bleach, to those who don't know, there's a profile of Ichigo, that says that the person he most respects is William Shakespeare, so I'm not making that up.

Anyways... Enjoy!

Emmy

They went out to the training grounds, which were close to the barracks—they had once been a playground of sorts. They walked to the middle of one of the larger fields, which was covered in grass with occasional trees, and turned to face each other.

"No ijou, Ichigo. You can use shikai and bankai, but not ijoukai. And you can hollowify if you really feel the need to. I myself have no intention of going above shikai. The winner is the first person to lose possession of their sword loses."

"Yes, Orihime." He didn't ask how she knew about his inner hollow, which was just as well. She wouldn't have told him even if he did ask.

"Well, then, lets go." and the two of them took off. Orihime launched herself backwards and up into the branches of a tree, and waited for Ichigo. It didn't take long—he shunpo'd in behind her, Zangetsu raised.

"Very good, Ichigo." She was behind him now, with her Zanpakuto against his throat and his right arm, the one that held Zangetsu, stuck in the vice-like grip of her own right hand. She tried to ignore the feeling of his rapidly beating pule under her palm. "You were quick, calculated, and you aimed to kill. But not quick enough, I think. No, not if I was able to get behind you like that. And I don't even use Shunpo."

She let him go, and he took the opportunity to leap out of the tree and into the air that was waiting around. "You'll need to learn to control the reishi here, Ichigo. It's not like the reishi in Soul Society."

He appeared in front of her, Zangetsu raised and about to attack. She blocked him with her own katana, and held the position so that the two were engaged in a battle of pure strength. Neither was winning or losing, but Ichigo was expending effort, and Orihime... She wasn't.

She looked into his eyes, trying to challenge him, daring him to push harder.

And something clicked.

Not in Orihime, she was just as cold as ever. No, something clicked in Ichigo—she could see it happen. His eyes went from emotionless to angry in a single moment, and the next, he was several dozens of yards away from her and letting loose an explosion of Spiritual pressure.

His bankai was exactly the same as it has always been, at least as far as how it looked. It was still a long, black katana that had killed more people than anybody would like to count. But it felt different.

It was strange. Tensa Zangetsu had always terrified her, filled her with a sense of awe that sent her into an endless spiral of demoralizing self pity. But now... Tensa Zangetsu was just another Zanpakuto, a power type that had a rather unusual bankai.

It made her realize just how strong she had become. Strong and cold, detached. It was another stab of how much she missed her old self.

"Sweep, Kuchikukan."

Orihime's sword changed. The handle turned white and changed shape, so that it almost looked like it had been cut from a bone. The hilt was shaped so that it curved away from her hand as it connected to the blade, eliminating the need for a guard. The blade turned black and lengthened and curves, forming a scimitar-like shape. It was not a scimitar, though—the one side curved to a point, and the other side made a dip and went back to the hilt—it was too... natural to be a scimitar. Too graceful. It looked as though it would be easier to wield than a scimitar would be, less awkward and faster. And all three sides were bladed.

It was designed to kill.

A chain hung from the back of the hilt, similar to the chain that fell from Tensa Zangetsu, but with a difference. This chain glowed. There were only two links on it, one slightly bigger than the other, and both of them glowed the color of molten lava. When the hilt of the sword moved fast enough, however, one could realize that the chain was not actually attached, but hovered there. It was a warning to its master, a tally.

This sword could destroy.

"I will not use the full force of my shikai on you, Ichigo. I simply want to fight you in the manner that I am most used to."

He nodded.

"Then come, see if you can dislodge my sword. Don't hold back."

He came quickly, that's for sure. He shunpo'd to her, Zangetsu poised to slice within a blink of an eye. Orihime blocked his swing, and rather than holding the position as she had before, as Ichigo was used to, she twisted his sword away, leaving his front unprotected. She sliced into his shihakusho, leaving it torn in the front, and a light scratch from the bottom right to the top left of his chest and stomach. The cut was not deep, and didn't draw much blood, if any. It was as she had intended it to be.

He flew back and landed in the air, looking down at his front. He looked back at her in surprise. "I wouldn't have thought you were so skilled with a blade, Orihime."

She smiled, and it was a little bit more natural than a smile would have been the day before. "It comes with the position—they don't give you high rank without the abilities that go with it."

He nodded, and sprang back to her to attack. He couldn't hit her, no matter how hard he tried, but she knew what was happening—their styles were too different. Ichigo worked with pure strength and force. Power was his weapon, and he wielded it well. The problem to his attacks was Orihime's own style—she had been trained differently, because of the way that her Zanpakuto was shaped. She was better at traditional fencing and parrying, turning the enemy's attack into an opening and using that chance to conflict wounds of any given caliber. Ichigo, however, was both used to fighting with broad, powerful blasts and strokes, but also used to fighting people who fought the same way that he did. It was like Kenpachi fighting Soi Fon—the styles just didn't allow for a good fight.

Orihime didn't land in any more blows, though. Granted, she wasn't trying her hardest, but since her first blood, Ichigo had gotten a better understanding of her technique. He had taken shorter swings, and gotten used to the idea of constant movement as opposed to starting and stopping, as was his usual manner.

After an hour or so, the two of them decided to take a break, sitting under one of the trees, talking amiably to one another. Both of their clothes were shredded, although that was not so bad for Orihime, as she wore a few extra layers. It reminded her of some things, too.

"You'll have a new uniform, Ichigo. As my guard, your colors change."

He looked surprised. "Colors?"

"You've observed, I'm sure, that I wear a red haori? Well, you are a member of my personal guard, so you have to match. You don't need to wear a haori, but your under-kimono will have to be red to match me. It's a sign of status."

"When will I need to get one?"

"I have a bunch of them in my room, I'll get you one before your shift starts tonight. The rest of your shihakusho stays the same, though: white outer kimono, white hakama, and black waistband."

He nodded, and they were silent for a while. Orihime looked up—it was almost midday. "Well, how about another quick round before we head back? You should get some rest before your shift starts tonight."

He nodded, and—always the gentleman—helped her to her feet. She drew her sword and released it, and he went back to bankai, and the two of them stood a dozen feet apart, facing each other, ready to fight. Orihime assumed her stance, one that carried the blade of her sword close to her face, and helped focus her eyes on the enemy at hand.

"Come again, Laertes, for the third." he raised his sword, assuming his usual stance.

Orihime was to surprised to not say anything. "Hamlet? I didn't know you were a big Shakespeare person."

"I think that I respect William Shakespeare more than anybody else. Did you know that I got to meet him? In seireitei. He didn't remember who he was, though, in life, which was kind of disappointing. Funny guy, though. A pervert, but funny."

Orihime didn't even know why she was laughing, or what was so funny—maybe it was because the whole thing was so ridiculous, but she just couldn't stop herself.

"What's so funny?"

She just couldn't catch her breath. It was just too funny, even if she didn't know what the hell she was laughing at anyways. And now Ichigo was looking at her with that expression, his frown of complete confusion while still poised to start a fight... oh man, it was funny.

It took a while, but eventually the laughing fit died down. When Orihime got control of herself, she looked up to see him, still standing at the ready. Clearly, she was not in the mood to fight. "How did you remember who he was?" She looked back down at the ground, trying to convince herself to stand all the way up again.

The words seemed to burst from him unchecked, unconsidered, and unstoppable. "I remembered it from when I was alive."

Orihime's heart stopped. Her stomach dropped, her blood ran cold, and every other stupid cliché that could have possibly happened... did.

She looked back up at him. "You remembered it... from when you were alive?"

His eyes were wide. He must have realized what he had said, but it was too late—she had heard him say it. "Yeah, when I was still alive. We used to study him in school, and... I dunno, he always got to me."

He was trying to cover up his accident, she knew. He was trying to make the first half seem insignificant by answering the question. Though, now that she though about it, her question did back him into a corner... but still.

"Do..." her voice failed, but she tried her hardest to pick it back up again. "Do you remember everything from when you were alive?"

He didn't want to answer. She could see his hesitation, read it in his body language. She could see him—almost all of him—through the torn rags of what was left of his shihakusho. He was still beautiful. She saw the way his neck muscles flexed as he turned his head away, trying to hide his expression. She saw the way his hair was drenched with sweat...

Now was not the time for that. A wave of hatred went through her. This was important, nd she had to hear his answer.

And speaking of his answer...

he hadn't given one yet.

"Ichigo?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I remember everything from I was alive."

Orihime didn't know whether to run and kiss him or cry. She really wanted to do both, but... she wasn't that weak, she told herself. Not yet, you're not. You have control, you have discipline, you have self respect. You do not grovel on the ground in front of people, you do not show weakness.

Weakness left you a long time ago.

"Everything." She had to give herself credit; her voice almost didn't make her sound like she was crying.

"Yes," he was looking up at her now, his expression unreadable. "everything."

She met his eyes. His beautiful, brown eyes.

"Hello, Inoue."

She almost smiled.

"Hello, Kurosaki-kun."


	9. Pride

Hey guys,

so, the reviews last chapter... AWESOME! I was smiling for like ten minutes after I read them. Thank you!

This chapter is about when it stops going with the flow of the manga. Well, maybe—it still fits cannon but it has the potential to leave cannon with every new chapter that comes out (of the manga). So this is still canon, but it might not be for long. You'll see what I mean when you read it.

This is still rated T... hm. Well, hell, I should be old enough to read my own story. Anyways, until there's a sex scene, which I dunno about yet, this is staying T. Though there's gonna be some blood and guts, I'll tell you that right now. Just a warning.

This is where we see exactly what happened to Orihime. I hope you understand why she is the way that she is after you read this. This chapter is long too, and only part of the back story. Sorry about that, but I just wanted to get this out. Hope you like it.

Thanks,

Emmy

Two hundred and sixty two years before, or, the present day:

It was a horrible affair.

She hated it. She hated the whole damn thing. All of the death, all of the pain, all of the loneliness.

Ichigo was gone. Again.

She wanted to scream. She hated it, hated it, _hated it_ when he was gone.

He'd been in good enough shape not so long ago, when he left with Unohana. Of course, Orihime hadn't seen him then, but she had felt him. It all honesty, the extent to which she could feel him from a distance made her think of herself as a stalker. She always knew who he was fighting, what level of release he was on, who was attacking, and who was getting hurt. It was innate.

She was healing Rukia, Renji, and Chad. Uryuu was fighting Yammy, the giant, along with Byakuya and Kenpachi. Orihime was just trying to stay out of their way—she was done seeing blood for the day. She'd seen far too much of that coming from Ichigo since she had woken up this morning. Well, just woken up—Hueco Mundo didn't have morning, only night.

Rukia came to first, gasping and rolling over as consciousness came back to her. She sat up, looking around. Seeing Orihime, she calmed. "Orihime, what's happening?"

"You got knocked out, Rukia. I'm healing you. Ichigo went with Captain Unohana to Karakura, and Byakuya is here, along with Kenpachi and Uryuu. They're fighting."

Rukia stood up, which was possible only because of the current large span of Orihime's shield. "Let, me out, Orihime, I have to get to Nii-sama."

"Are you sure? You haven't been healed all the way yet."

Rukia glanced down at Orihime before her gaze returned to the shunpo of her brother. "Yes, I need to help him."

"Of course," Orihime replied sadly. She called to Ayame, who receded from Rukia to concentrate on the other two.

"Orihime," She looked up. Rukia was giving her a look. "I'll be fine, don't worry." Rukia smiled, then, as she drew her sword. "Just you work on those two hotheards, They got it worse than I did."She smiled, then. "Remember today. Today we're fighting together, just like we said we would." And with those words, she shumpo'd away, joining her brother and Kenpachi. Uryuu was nowhere to be seen, but she could feel him—he was alright.

She devoted her energy instead to healing the two men under her charge. Chad was almost awake when it happened.

She felt it before she saw it—Rukia. She got smashed into a rock, headfirst, with no warning. The dust was everywhere, and it was impossible to see what had happened. But Orihime didn't use her eyes as much as she used to, she used her feelings. And she didn't feel anything. She couldn't feel anything. And that was the problem.

She couldn't feel Rukia.

She leapt to her feet, unable to think of anybody but her friend, her best friend. She took off toward the cloud, not caring that she couldn't see, only desperate to find Rukia.

She should have cared about her surroundings, though. A fist went flying, a very large fist, and connected with Orihime's head. She barely even remembered flying as her mind went dark and everything became... nothing.

She learned later that she had been out for several days. It was Unohana who found her, told her what happened, that Rukia was...

But it wasn't possible. Orihime could heal anybody, she knew. She had brought Ichigo back from the dead, she could heal Rukia. She could, she would, dammit, if only they would let her out of this bed, if she could only get to her body. She could bring Rukia back.

She had to bring Rukia back.

She felt herself falling, but never noticed the landing as she collapsed back into her bed, asleep before she hit the blankets.

It was another three days until she awoke, the exhaustion finally leaving her system. She'd spent a week sleeping, dreaming quietly of nothing while Rukia was dead. Dead, dead, dead...

No.

She tried. Byakuya had taken back her body from Hueco Mundo, in the hopes that Orihime could heal her, and she tried, God knows how she tried. She collapsed in exhaustion after trying two days of nonstop trying. But the fact could not be erased, could not be rejected. Not this time.

A week and a half after Rukia's death, Orihime woke up again. This time, there was nobody there, no person healing her, no person telling her to stay in bed. But even if there had been somebody, it wouldn't have mattered—she couldn't get up. She could barely move, and her body felt numb. Except her chest. Her chest held an ache not to be believed.

Rukia was dead. She would never come back. There was nothing that Orihime could do about it.

There was nothing that she could do.

Nothing.

And that's when it hit her, the moment that she realized that she couldn't do a thing, that her own inability to watch where she was going got her best friend killed.

Her best friend. Rukia. Rukia, who was dead.

She didn't scream, she didn't cry out. She just cried. Silent, constant tears dripped across her face, down her neck, and into her clothing. She didn't move, not even a hand to wipe away the tears. She didn't even breathe too much. She just laid there and cried.

Rukia was dead. She couldn't do anything, not a single thing. Nothing. She couldn't help. She was useless.

_'Remember today, '_

Rukia was dead.

_'Today we're fighting together, like we said we would'_

_'like we said we would.'_

Dead, dead, dead. Useless, a waste of space... dead, dead... her fault... dead, dead, dead...

_'remember today'_

She knew what she had to do.

She sat up in her bed, looking wildly around—there was a window and a door. She ran to the window, but it was too high. The door, then. It was locked, but that wasn't too much of a problem—she had Tsubaki.

The door crashed apart, and Orihime was running. She needed out, out, out, out, now. Now. Now.

OUT.

Nobody stopped her. Nobody even tried, at least not that Orihime noticed. She was blind to the outside world, everything that involved anything besides herself and the hallways in front of her.

The gate was open, and she burst out of it, still running. She was panting, but, once again, hardly even noticed. She didn't care about her body, she just wanted out of here, of this damned place. And she ran, and got pretty far.

He was the only person who could have stopped her. Well, maybe Ichigo could have, but Ichigo was... she didn't know where. In the real world, she thought, was the last that she had heard of him. For once, she almost didn't care where Ichigo was. Almost. She did care, of course, but... she couldn't think about it. She had more important things on her mind, like getting rid of her waste of space, getting rid of this thing that lost other people... getting rid of herself.

It was Byakuya who stopped her.

Rukia's brother.

Rukia. Dead. Brother._ 'Nii-Sama!'_

"Where are you going, Orihime?"

"Where does it look? Away, somewhere that's not here. Somewhere anywhere but here."

"Why?"

She exploded. "Why? You, of all people, should know why. Because she's dead, that's why. Because it was my fault, and I forgot to look around and she's dead, she's gone, and there's nothing left, and I'm not worth having around." She was hysterical.

Somewhere, she realized, she knew, that her words sounded stupid, sounded weak. She knew she sounded like a wimp, somebody who was selfish.

Good, she thought. At least there'll be one less selfish bitch alive.

"You're going to kill yourself." It wasn't a question. He knew perfectly well what the answer was.

"Yes."

"Fine, kill yourself. But only if you can answer a question I have for you."

"Fine."

"Why are you going to kill yourself?"

"Because I hate myself."

"Why do you hate yourself?"

"Because I am pathetic. I hate myself because I failed and Rukia died, just like you should hate me."

"So you're going to kill yourself because you think you are weak?"

It sounded so... wrong when he said it like that. It was the truth, she knew, but somehow, to hear someone else say it made the option of killing herself sound so... crude. Pointless. Stupid.

She didn't answer.

"Hate is a reason for death that I simply cannot condone." He said. "I know of only one reason that allows for death, let alone suicide. Pride is the only thing that should lead to either."

She wanted to laugh. "Pride?"

he looked back, expressionless. "Yes, pride. Rukia fought her battles to protect pride—my pride, her pride, our family's pride, even yours. The loss of one's pride is cause for either an attempt to gain it back or suicide. You wanted to save Rukia, but not for the sake of her pride—you wanted to save her life. Your pride was hurt by your failure, but you do not see pride as an obstacle. You want to kill yourself out of hate, which is the worst reason. I cannot allow you to go, not if you are going to die out of hate."

"That's a stupid philosophy." She didn't sound like herself, neither her word or her tone.

"You may think so, but it doesn't change the fact that as long as I am alive, I will not let you kill yourself. You meant too much to her."

Her. Rukia.

Rukia. Dead.

Dead.

"So what would you have me do?"

"I would have you train and get your pride back until you see that hate is not worth dying over."

"train?"

"Yes, Orihime. Train."

_'Remember today.'_

"I see." She thought back to the fight. To how Rukia died. "Did Yammy live?"

"Yes, he did."

"I see." she straightened, her head rising until she was looking Byakuya in the eye. Byakuya. Rukia's brother.

_'Nii-Sama!'_

_'Remember today."_

"We have two and a half months, Byakuya. In two and a half months, I will kill him. I will get ack Rukia's pride."

"I see."

"Will you train me, Captain Kuchiki?"

"Yes. For two and a half months, I will train you to the best of my ability."

And trained they did. She did. She was given a Zanpakuto, and taught how to sword fight. She constantly fought Byakuya, going days on end without stopping. She lost the fights a lot, often getting extreme injuries, only to heal herself and stand back up to fight again. She got a supply of Fourth-Squad energy supplements, and they helped. She fought against Renji, when Byakuya had to keep to his duties. She ate quickly. She fought her exhaustion, strengthened her will power. Her body grew muscles, her reflexes grew faster. Her mind was sharper than it had been before, and her senses better attuned to the world around her. Her language had changed, after a time spent with Renji—his cussing habits had worn off onto her, and she found that she liked the freedom of saying what she wanted, being able to use the adjectives and nouns that some people found offensive.

She was better.

It happened a month into training, when she had progressed as far as fighting opponents using shikai. She was fighting Byakuya at the time, and she had been losing, as usual.

"What are you doing, Orihime?" he called. "why are you losing? Think of her pride, of Rukia's pride! What's going to happen to it?" The taunts were common, and, in all honesty, a good help. They reminded her of her task, of why she was doing this.

_'Today we're fighting together, just like we said we would.'_

Pride, she thought. That was the word. Pride.

_'together'_

She saw the mass of pink coming towards her, the mass of pink that could mean her death if she got hit by it. But she could doge it, or block it. Block, she quickly decided, there were too many other strands coming for her to be able to dodge. Concentrate. Her eyes slipped closed.

Pride. Rukia's pride. Fight together. Rukia. Pride. Together. Together. Together. Rukia's Pride. Together.

_'together'_

Then is hit.

My pride. She was fighting for her own pride as well.

Her eyes snapped open, but she no longer saw a pink mass zooming towards her like she expected. Instead, there was... nothing.

Well, not quite nothing. There was blackness, though it was broken with little spots of white light. Stars, she realized. She was looking at stars. That was weird.

She looked down and was surprised to see the exact same thing—stars on a black background. But then what was she standing on? There was nothing there.

She looked back up to gaze in a circle, and only got more confused. Where was this place? What happened? There was a light coming from above her, she realized. She looked up, trying to figure out what was happening.

The light was a planet.

It wasn't the Earth, she thought. It didn't look like the pictures of the earth that she had seen. It was to... green. There wasn't very much water, at least not that she could see. The entire thing was just this light, electric green that made her think of tropical rain forests.

She didn't realize for several months that it was the Royal Realm that she saw. She had no way of knowing.

She was baffled. She had no idea what the hell was happening.

"It's where those go who I have destroyed," came a voice from behind her. A beautiful voice.

Orihime turned to find a woman standing on what had earlier been empty. She was beautiful, was Orihime's first thought. She had green eyes, so green that the jungle below seemed almost dull in comparison. Her skin was flawless, her cheeks were naturally pink. Her hair was long and black, and fell in waves down her back. She wore a dress that was pure white an went to the ground—or the equivalent thereof, there was no ground in this place. Her feet couldn't be seen, though, from where Orihime stood. The dress looked...medieval, somehow, like something that an old princess might have worn. The sleeves made bell shapes, so that when her arms moved, there was a trail of fabric that went behind, which gave the illusion of superhuman grace.

But she wasn't human, was she?

"Are you my Zanpakuto?"

"Yes, mistress." Mistress?

"Will you tell me your name?"

"I am Kuchikukan."

"Kuchikukan." It sounded so much like Kuchiki. So much like Rukia's name.

"Yes."

"I guess it's nice to meet you."

"You will come to hate me soon enough, but I appreciate the thought."

That was more than a little bit cryptic. "I'll come to hate you? Why would I do that?"

Kuchikukan gazed at Orihime. "You know what my name means?"

In truth, she had been so caught up in how it sounded that she hadn't thought about the meaning. "Kuchikukan... The Vessel of Destruction."

"Yes, The Vessel of Destruction. Why do you think I am named that?"

"I don't know. Is it because of your abilities?"

"My ability, yes." She paused for a moment, and when she continued, her face was... strange. Blank, devoid of any expression. While before it had been curious, now there was... nothing.

"I destroy things," she said. "souls. Any soul that I touch becomes obliterated, and what is left of the creature becomes a slave to your will. All souls that I destroy, then, are reformed up there," and she pointed the vast, green planet that was floating above their heads. "There, they are totally obedient to you. To the physical thing that I destroy, the physical bodies remain, but the soul is gone. Understand, it is a very permanent attack—any soul who is destroyed is to live within you until its physical body dies, which has the potential to be never. They are constantly in your mind, and they are constantly thinking of you. They can sense when you are in danger, and when you are, they come to your aid. The one and only order that you can give that they will not follow is to hurt you, or to not help you. Other than that, and soul that has been destroyed will be totally obedient.

"There is one catch, though, to your abilities, now. You have to charge the Zanpakuto, me. It's... You have to concentrate on the next soul I hit being destroyed, otherwise, it will not work. Every time that you release me, though, I will have to take one soul. Keep in mind, it can be any should, even a blade of grass. But it must e a soul, and it must me the first thing that I touch,:

Orihime was shocked. "Any soul?"

"Yes, any soul."

"Even plants?"

"Yes, even plants."

Orihime was shocked. It was horrible. What a terrible power to have, to be able to destroy another being's soul and have it as a personal slave. It was a frightening thought.

"I told you that you would not like me so much after you knew about me, mistress."

There it was again, that word, mistress. Such a strange word. But there were more important things at hand just then, and she forgot about the vocabulary choice quickly.

"Why are you telling me this right away? Ichigo had to wait for a long time before he could use his attacks, so why so soon?"

"Because you already have the will that you must have in order to wield the power that I offer; otherwise, I would not be here. Your friend, Kurosaki Ichigo, had problems with is understanding, and had to be taken slowly. Well, slowly for a human. You, however, not only don't need the lag time, but need there to _not_ be lag time. You need these powers, and you need them soon. You need more, and I have more to give, but you have some training still to go before then. Until that time comes, then, I will say good bye now."

"Good bye, and thank you, Kuchikukan." It was horrible how much that name sounded like Kuchiki.

"One final word before you go, mistress." There it was again! "When I am in your hand, there will be a chain attached to the back of the hilt. That chain will have different links of different sizes—each link is a soul who is a threat to you nearby, a threat that the destroyed souls recognize. They are also all different sizes, depending on the strength of the souls involved. A warning to you."

Orihime nodded, and when she looked back up, there was a snakelike pink mass going straight towards her, and she knew what she had to do.

"Sweep, Kuchikukan!"


	10. Pride II

Yo yo yo,

To be honest, I'm not a fan of the last chapter. I feel like I didn't get Kuchikukan across right. Sorry about that. Just know that Kuchikukan is Powerful with a capital P.

I don't like this chapter all that much either, but hopefully you will. This is the last chapter that I have planned about the past. There might be another one later if I get my next plot point planned, I dunno yet. Also, I know that the anime disagrees with me, but I refuse to believe that anything with the name Senbonzakura, which translates to "A Thousand Cherry Blossoms" is a boy. We all know that Byakuya of the massive pink sword is less than strictly manly, so Senbonzakura is a girl in this story. Get over it.

A friend of mine who had not read this story saw me writing it. She read a certain line and thought it was perverted, so I told her that I just killed off Rukia. She got all fake depressed and decided it would be funny to give it an ending. She stole my computer from me and wrote it at the end of what I had written, and I thought it was just way too funny to not show you guys, so here you go. I copied and pasted it, so it's the way that she wrote it. :

but then she [Rukia] came back to life and butterflies flew out of Chad's butt and ichigo fought a butt-load of hollows and maimed a bear and all sorts of fun stuff and orihime owned a coffee shop and I have absolutely no idea what the heck i'm writing ….... and then ichigo got married and became a transvestite and fun stuff happened. Yay.

Maybe you had to have been there for it to be funny, but I was laughing my ass off. Please enjoy this chapter, and, for your own sake,

Don't stub your toe,

Emmy

Tatsuki was pissed. She was like a wet cat, mad and ready to hurt somebody, anybody who got in her way.

Well, there was one person n particular that she wouldn't mind castrating, but that would just have to wait. He was too far away for her to start wailing on him, so, in the mean time, she would just have to vent her spleen on anybody else in the near vicinity, which, just then, happened to be Keigo.

She almost felt sorry for the poor guy. She certainly would have felt sorry for him if she hadn't been the one inflicting damage on him in the first place.

She let him go after a while—prey that didn't fight back wasn't worth it.

Tatsuki hated this, all of the waiting that she had to go through. She knew what was happening—Urahara had kept her up to date—but that didn't make it any easier to swallow. She knew that right now she was in Soul Society. She knew that not very many people knew: She, Urahara's group, Keigo, and Mizuiro were the only ones that she knew of. Everybody else who would know wasn't in town at the moment.

It had been over two weeks since Karakura had been moved, three since Orihime had disappeared. In the lst two weeks, though, there had been a lot of movement. It was strange—every so often, a certain area of town, around the border of the area that had been moved, she knew, was going into... she didn't know exactly what it was, but it was weird. It was like the people in certain places were vanishing. She asked Urahara, something that she seemed to be doing a lot of lately. It seemed that parts of Karakura were slowly being sucked back to the real world, the world of the living. It meant that the Soul Reapers were having a hard time keeping the Arrancars back.

It meant that Ichigo was in trouble.

She didn't like it, not one little bit. She didn't know where Orihime was or even how she was doing, she didn't know if Ichigo was still alive or not, and if she went to find out, she would be killed.

It was infuriating, and that was why Tatsuki found herself wandering around in desperate need of something to do that involved a show of violence. She needed to get the tension out. She desperately needed to beat up something that would be able to fight back, not a wimp. She needed a workout.

It happened before she even realized that there was any danger—she stirrings that she had been noticing around the borders of Karakura were suddenly there again, but this time... They were underneath her.

She was being brought back to the real world, she realized.

The world was going black, and she realized that she must be on her way. She was almost happy.

At least now there would be something for her to do.

That was her last thought before she passed out, and when she woke, she had no memory of her final thoughts. In fact, she didn't remember...

~*~*~

How could something so beautiful do something to horrible?

That blade, the beautiful sword that Orihime held, the black blade of the spirit's hair, the hilt the white of her dress. It was so beautiful, but how could it do such a terrible thing? How could it destroy so easily, with only a single touch?

Why hadn't she thought it through?

Kuchikukan had told her everything that she needed to know, but Orihime hadn't listened. Or maybe she hadn't understood. She hadn't realized what she was about to do. After all, Kuchikukan could destroy any soul—a person, a bade of grass, a dinosaur.

A zanpakuto.

Senbonzakura no longer resided under Byakuya's control. Essentially, the spirit, the soul of Senbonzakura had been destroyed, and, because of that, Byakuya was no longer a Soul Reaper. He had lost all of his powers in the moment that he lost his sword. He was still alive, though. Only a normal human soul.

He was unconscious for a while. Orihime spent a long time trying to take the process back, trying to reverse what she had done. But it was impossible—the spirit of Senbonzakura was destroyed. It was fitting that the only injury, the only event that Orihime could not negate, could not take back, could not reject, was the injury that she herself inflicted. It was so sad.

She couldn't take it back. When Byakuya woke, he was a regular soul. He had no powers anymore, no abilities. He was not a Soul Reaper. His pride was gone.

No. Orihime had singlehandedly destroyed the source of his pride and abilities.

She hated herself. She knew that that wasn't what she should be thinking about, but it was the truth. She despised herself. She couldn't fix what she had broken. What shame.

Shame. She thought her shame was bad, just imagine what Byakuya felt. She tried to imagine how he felt. She remembered when Renji had come to take his shift and found his captain on the ground, his sword nowhere in sight, and her, sobbing, trying to fix him, trying to take it back.

She remembered the look on the captain—former captain's—face as he looked up to see Renji standing there, seeing his life's challenge defeated with no problem. The two hadn't even locked gazes with one another. She remembered seeing Byakuya look only at the ground, and Renji walking away in complete silence.

It was so horrible, so shameful. She couldn't even imagine what either of them must feel like.

Byakuya asked what had happened, and she had told him. She told him of her power, and how she hadn't understood, and what had happened to Senbonzakura, where the sword was now. Byakuya listened silently, never looking up to her eyes.

"Senbonzakura is no longer my sword, then."

It was so terrible. All of the years, the decades, that Byakuya must have spent training with all of his effort, fighting to save Soul Society. All of those years, gone, in the blink of an eye, and all because she was too stupid to understand the harm that she could inflict singlehandedly.

"No, Senbonzakura is my sword now."

"I see."

He stood up without either help or ease—he was physically weak, and her spiritual pressure was strong enough now to have an impact on somebody who had none.

"Will you destroy me, then?"

He couldn't. He couldn't do that to her. She couldn't even think of doing that to him. How would she ever be able to do that to anybody? She would never be able to destroy anyone again.

'Why are you so upset, mistress?'

Her body jerked. "Who was that?" It was a woman's voice, but she couldn't see anybody around.

'mistress, he only wants you to destroy him.'

What? What kind of a request was that? And just who in the hell had called her "mistress?" It didn't sound like Kuchikukan...

'forgive me' the voice said. 'I know that I am nothing in comparison to your greatness, mistress.

"Who are you?"

'Senbonzakura, of course,' she replied, and Orihime realized what had happened.

"No."

"No?" It was Byakuya, he had heard her. "You will not take me, then, as you took my Zanpakuto? You will deny me my final honor and pride?"

No, she couldn't do that, not to this man, a man who had taught her so much, was her best friend's brother...

No. She was dead, and all that there was left to do was to avenge her, to give her back her pride. And she knew how she was going to go about that. She knew that she was going to kill that monster, that abomination.

She looked at Byakuya, at what he was asking her to do.

"Would you have me take suck pity on you, to destroy you in such a way?"

"No, I would not have you take pity on me. I would have you honor me with the same duty that you have taken on yourself."

"So you want me to destroy you?There is no doubt in your mind?"

"No, there are no doubts. I invite it. Allow me to help you."

She was silent for a long moment, looking at him. Thinking, not knowing what to do.

'mistress?'

'yes?'

'Please do it. It is all that he wants, and you will gain all of his knowledge and experience with me. Please, for your sake and Rukia's, if not his. You owe this to him.'

She found herself nodding. Yes, she did owe this to Byakuya.

She looked back up at him. She nodded. "Yes, I'll do it."

He nodded as well. "I'll do it now, then, Byakuya."

He nodded again. She released her sword again, looking at the beauty of it's abilities with dislike. She hated it, what it had made her to these people. She didn't say anything as she raised it, poising it to strike him across the chest.

He looked up at her before she struck, straight into her eyes. It was horrible, how weak he looked. He had always been strong, silent, untouchable. Now, though... he was nothing. She could take him without a problem.

"Thank you."

Those were the last words that Byakuya said before Kuchikukan struck him and his free will was no more.

She collapsed, laying on the ground. She could feel him, now. Hear him in her world. But it wasn't him anymore, was it? No, it wasn't. It would never be him again.

It was a full day that she spent laying there. She didn't move, she didn't even fall asleep. She just lay there, dreading movement. Hating herself.

She had destroyed him.

Twenty Four hours was a long time. She had already been awake for several days, and the strain on her mind and body was extreme. But she stayed awake. Her will was stronger than it used to be. She was still and silent, but not unmoving. Her mind was running in circles, as if she was going up and up and up in a car garage. At every new level she found determination, more and more and more and more, and the higher she was, the more strength and speed she won, and she kept roaring onward, steeling her mind for what she knew she had to do.

She was in the exact same place the next morning when Renji found her. He had come back to see what hat happened, and found Orihime on the ground in the fetal position, Byakuya gone, and not a drop of blood on the ground.

He went to her on the ground and sat next to her. "What happened?"

She told him everything, just as she had told Byakuya. She didn't stop, she barely moved, as if she was afraid that movement would crack her resolve. She couldn't stop, somehow; once the words started, they wouldn't stop, they couldn't stop. He sat there next to her and listened. She told him what she was going to do, what she needed him to do.

"Are you willing to do what you have to? Are you sure that you can kill them?"

Yes, she was sure that she could to what she had to do. She knew that is she could to that to her ally that she would be able to do that to an enemy, even to more than one. She knew what there was for her to do, and she knew how to do it. She was resolved. There was nothing that could stop her now.

"Can you get me there?"

He gave a crooked grin. "Of course I can."

She nodded at him. "Good." She got herself up off the ground and wiped the dirt from her clothes. She had been wrong, it turned out. Moving did not weaken her resolve, but rather strengthened it—she was on her way, now. She was getting closer to what she had decided to do. The momentum was building.

She turned to Renji. "Lets go."

It was less than six hours after that when the two of them found themselves in The World of the Living. The fighting was still going, two weeks after her own return from Hueco Mundo to Soul Society. Various people were taking breaks, of course, but there was a fight happening.

Specifically, Aizen was still fighting.

Many people were dead. Hitsugaya was dead. Rangiku was dead. Shinji was dead. Lisa was dead. She lay on the ground, her clothes so tattered that she was practically naked. It was sad to see, Orihime decided. She would have gone and at least fixed the wounds, but something stopped her. She was cold, she was determined, she was decided. She had something that she had to do.

There was nothing that could stop her now.

Not even what Yamamoto told her.

"You have been requested," He'd said when she first arrived in the World of the Living, "In the Royal Realm. You have two hours until the portal opens. Once you are inside of it, you will not be able to exit. You will be sucked it. You will not have to run or make any effort, you will be carried there.

"You are not allowed to say no. You are not allowed to run away. I was told to select somebody, and your name is the one that came up. Do you understand?"

He sounded so much like Ulquiorra. Ugh. Nostalgia. She hated it, hated that it took over her life. But this was something that she should do. It didn't matter where she went or who was there. She had to protect her pride, Byakuya's pride... Her best friend Rukia's pride.

Her best friend.

Tatsuki.

NO! She stopped herself. Now was no time to worry about her friend. Now was the time to do what needed to be done, what she had decided she would do.

"Two hours?"

Yamamoto nodded. "Two hours."

"Very well." She turned and looked him in the eye. "This war will be over by the time I leave this world, Yamamoto. I leave rebuilding to you." and with that, she glanced at Renji, nodded, and was gone.

She could feel Ichigo fighting. She couldn't tell who she was fighting, but she knew it was happening. He was alive, that's what was important. He was still fighting.

Yammy was still alive, she noticed. That was good. He was fighting with Renji, as the two of them had planned. Renji was to let her finish him, but in the mean time, he could have his fun. Renji had some bones to pick with the guy, anyways.

Orihime turned her attention to Aizen, who had seen her and taken it upon himself to come into range of her own vision.

She looked at him.

"This is going to end now, Aizen. You have to die. You know that, don't you?"

"I don't have to die. I have no intention of dying. I had no desire to kill you, but if you insist on challenging me, then I might just have to do that."

She almost laughed at how ridiculous he sounded, how false his pride was. How misplaced his understanding. Though it was not his fault.

"Will you fight me, then?"

She sneered back. Sneered. Who'd have thought that she was capable of such a thing? But she was, and here she was, sneering at a man that she despised even more than herself. "Yes, I will fight you. And I will destroy you."

He laughed openly. "Destroy? Such a harsh word for such a beautiful girl. You shouldn't use such words, it'll make you rot below."

A pervert, too, it seemed. No matter, she didn't care what he thought. She only knew what there was that needed to be done. "I was simply telling the truth. I will destroy you, that is a fact."

He smiled. "Well then, feel free to try." and with that, her sword was out and they were fighting.

Time passed. She didn't know how long the two of them were going. She knew that she was losing. She could hear his taunts going through her, mocking her. He was toying with her, she knew. She wasn't dead yet, but she was losing. She would die if it kept up like this. She wasn't concentrating enough.

She withdrew, both of them taking a break. "Are you ready, Aizen?" she called to him, panting. "I'm going to stop taking it easy on you, now. You're about to be destroyed. Any last words?"

"Where has this come from?" He asked her. "Why are you so different? Two weeks ago, you healed people who tried to kill you because you couldn't stand the idea of people dying. What has happened since then? Why do you insist on destruction?"

"I," She said, "do not insist on destruction, but preservation. You are in the way, and for that, you must not be allowed to live. You have hurt me, you have killed many others, and that must stop here and now."

"You're making excuses. This sounds nothing like you, Inoue. This sounds like Tousen, the fool, and his righteous beliefs. But you know better. You are not the same as him, you have another goal. What is it?"

She wasn't panting anymore. She wasn't tired. There was no unrest in her mind. There was nothing but determination. Understanding. Pure, undiluted desire to kill this man. She hated this man.

"I desire to protect everyone from you."

And with that Kuchikukan appeared. There were four links on the chain. Four souls. Aizen, Kyoka Suigetsu, Gin, and Yammy.

Two of those were about to disappear.

Kyoka Suigetsu was first. When Kuchikukan touched the illusion, it was destroyed, a part of her own soul. It was only a matter of moments after that that she was able to touch the sword itself. Kyoka Suigetsu was hers, and Aizen's powers were gone. But she didn't stop, oh no. She knew what had to be done. She ran him through, stabbing him in the chest with Kuchikukan, but not allowing him to feel like Byakuya did, not allowing him to live on in her world. No, Aizen Sosuke would die there and then, and nobody would stop that from happening.

His body fell to the ground of the fake Karakura. Nobody made any movement to show it any respect, to sow it down, to preserve its form. He lay on the ground with his back facing up, his limbs at odd angles, his blood spattered around him.

Nobody clapped. This was not something to be happy about. It was sad, they all knew it. Well, maybe sad was the wrong word. Unfortunate was better.

She could feel that Ichigo was fighting, still doing fine. He was alive, that was all that mattered. She had more important business to attend to.

She leapt down to Renji, who was beat up, but still fighting. Yammy was his usual huge self, and, in his way, completely unaware of the death of Aizen. But that didn't matter. She looked at Renji in warning, and as he caught her gaze, he nodded and backed off, calling Kyoraku with him.

Orihime didn't even warn the beast. She simply called out the word "sweep" and brushed by Yammy with her blade, not even cutting him. But it was enough.

He fell before her, the man, the demon, the abomination. He called her mistress, just as all of the others had. He asked her what she wanted of him, what wish he could grant.

"My wish," and she paused, overcome by emotion. "Is that you die."

And he died, right there in front of her. He fell to the ground, just as Aizen had before him.

The monster was dead. Byakuya was avenged. Rukia was avenged. She had won their pride back, they had something left. They had their pride.

She felt a disturbance next to her, some ways away. She turned to see what she could only assume to be a portal, a black hole looking thing, in the air next to her. This was it. It didn't matter that she could never come back, Rukia was alright again. Rukia had her pride.

She was on her way, then. This world didn't need her anymore, Aizen was dead. She would leave, and it would be as if none of this had ever happened. And she was content, as she saw the blackness coming. She could start over.

There was an alarm in her mind. Something was wrong, but she couldn't tell what it was. Something was off...

She had one foot in the blackness before she realized what had happened.

Ichigo.

Oh, God, no. No.

She saw his from the distance, her eyes seeing a tunnel that only led to his face, his eyes. She could only see the was his eyes were slowly lightening, becoming unfocused, glassy.

Dead.

No. no, no, no.

It was only then that she realized that there were four links on her sword. Gin. It had been Gin. But that didn't matter, what mattered is that he was dying, and she was screaming, and no, no, no, no, no, she couldn't go, not when he could still be saved.

He couldn't die. Not like Rukia. He couldn't die because she wasn't smart enough or fast enough. She had trained for this, tried her absolute best to not let them down again. She had had faith in him, the way that he always had told her to. And he was dying. His blood was slowly spreading around under him. And she was running to him, and screaming for him, and she couldn't even see straight, and somehow, she was still going backwards.

Her resolve was gone now, her cool, calm understanding obliterated by the circumstances. She had to save him, she needed him to live. He had to live, he couldn't die. She had to save him. She didn't think about his pride, about Gin, Only about him. She had to save him.

She tried to run, she windmilled her arms, she screamed, begged, tried to get herself out of this accursed blackness that was taking her away. He had to live. He had to.

But she saw how white his eyes looked, how pale his skin, how ruined his body. And she couldn't do anything.

She cried. And as she cried, her eyes closed, and when they opened, all that there was was blackness. And she was on her way, she knew.

It was all over.

She would never love again. She would never show emotion. She would never be weak.

Never again.


	11. Scar

Well, ready for something cool? This story is still canon. It's amazing, I thought my universe would have been shot to threads by now, but apparently not. Who'da thunk it?

If anybody gets the "A Knight's Tale" reference, in here, please tell me. It'll make me very happy.

Also, please, please, PLEASE ask me questions, because I don't want to end the story yet, but I'm running low on ideas. And admittedly, I know how I'm going to end it, but I need a plot leading up to that point. Questions help with that, I swear.

The song I was listening to on repeat as I wrote this chapter: Scar Tissue, by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

For Dellanotte, because her(I'm pretty sure, Ara sounds like a girl's name) reviews always make me smile.

Emmy

"You survived." They were in Orihime's room, at the table in the middle. Her hair was unbraided again, her haori on the chair in front of her vanity. Orihime would have invited him to sit on the couch or even bed, but... she needed something between them, and Ichigo hadn't seemed to mind. Maybe he also needed it there.

"Yes, I survived."

"How?"

"The Hollow, he came out and, you know... did his thing."

She all but giggled. That was one way to put it, for sure. But her laughter soon died down—this wasn't a topic that afforded laughter. It was more like she was laughing in order to keep herself from crying, because the moment she stopped, she felt her lips turning down against her will, and she was barely able to will herself away from wiping her eyes. She looked up at him, but he just looked sad, like he didn't know what to do. He was looking down, unable, somehow, to be his confident, untouchable self.

That hurt worse than anything else.

"I am so sorry."

It wasn't a whisper, but it wasn't her voice. She had tried to talk, but her voice had cracked and somehow she had ended up in between that and a whisper. "I'm so sorry that I couldn't fix you. I tried so hard, Kurosaki kun, I tried, but I couldn't move..." She was quickly becoming hysterical. The spout was open and water was gushing out, almost literally. She hated crying, she hated tears, the ultimate sign of weakness. Kurosaki never cried. He was stronger than that. He was better.

It was horrible. She collapsed forward, her head on the table, sobbing. Crying. Oh, how she hated when this happened. Well, _this_ had never happened before—he had never seen her cry. She had meant for him to never see this part of her, the weak, insecure, unstable part that couldn't hold herself together. She was strong. She had always told herself that, and, over time, it had become true. But somehow she was weak again, and she hated it.

He was next to her, she suddenly realized. He pulled her up off the table and into his arms in a hug, as her head hung on one of his shoulders, her eyes leaking tears like rain through a blind thatcher's roof. He said nothing as she clung to him, letting it all go. Letting him go, even. Maybe.

He didn't say anything all the while, his expression never changed, though Orihime couldn't see it. He held her tightly, though, maybe even tighter than she held him. He never moved, he didn't rub her back or pet her hair. If Orihime had been in a mode of conscious thought, she would have been baffled by his behavior, the epitome of mixed signals.

The tears eventually slowed and stopped. She didn't want to let go, she didn't want to leave. She was so... fit to be right where she was at that moment. She didn't want to move. She imagined that she thumping she could feel was his heart, and not her own.

It was all so stupid.

She turned her head, eventually, to look away from him, across the table. Her hair was against his neck now, and she would have been able to fall asleep there in a moment if she wanted to. But now was not the time.

"I'm so sorry, Kurosaki."

She felt him exhale heavily, and then he started to talk. "There is nothing for you to be sorry about."

She tore herself out of his hold and stood up. "There are many things for me to be sorry for, Kurosaki kun. Many things that I have failed to do. I'm sorry that I wasn't there at the moment that you needed me, that I couldn't save you and you had to rely on the hollow for that. I'm sorry that I left without saying goodbye or even seeing you for two weeks," She was pacing, now, her voice growing louder and louder as she went. "I'm sorry that I never got to thank you for saving me in the first place, I'm sorry that you had to save me, I'm sorry that you even know me. And," her voice grew quiet, almost timid. "I'm sorry that you remember me," she finished. She'd stopped walking, and was holding her forehead in her right hand, her elbow resting on her left hand, which was folded across her chest.

He stood and took a few steps toward her, so that the two of them were closer, but still several paces apart. He was almost behind her, so he couldn't see her face."Why are you sorry that I remember you, Inoue? It doesn't make any sense."

She turned to look at him. "I'm sorry that you remember all of the horrible things that my existence has caused you to go through. I often think that it would be easier if you didn't remember, or I didn't exist in the first place."

"Is that why you didn't tell me that you knew who I was?"

She almost smirked back. "You played along, Kurosaki. You acted as if you didn't know me, either. Why did you do that?"

He stuck his hands into the vents in the sides of his shihakusho, as he currently lacked pockets. "I thought that you didn't remember me either. I thought it would be pointless to bring up old memories for the sake of my own satisfaction."

"Satisfaction?"

"Well..." he searched for a better word. "Closure, maybe. I don't know, I thought it would be selfish of me to tell you that you had a responsibility towards me. That would hardly be me looking out for your best interests, now, would it?"

"I can't imagine minding. If I couldn't remember my past, I think that I would be a very differen person right now. I would be nicer."

She was closer to him now, she had been taking sideways, meandering steps toward him unconsciously. They were now within an arms-length of each other.

"You were nice to me, Inoue. Even pretending not to have any idea who I was, you were nice to me. And you're nice to your subordinates, you gave them the day off. You take a lot of your duty on yourself, you don't delegate it out. Maybe you're cold, but you're not mean."

"Just saying that I'm not mean doesn't correspond to my being a nice person."

He laughed. "Where did this stubbornness come from?"

She smiled back, albeit unwillingly. "Two hundred years of not knowing anybody around me."

His smile disappeared, taking hers with it. "Two hundred years."

She nodded. It had been a long time.

They were silent for a while, each of them standing still, looking anywhere but at the other. Neither one knew what to say. Orihime hated silence, but as she stood there, she couldn't think of anything to say. She started giggling to herself at one point, as she almost bursted out in a round of "," but she was able to stop herself.

"How've you been?"

Well, there was a question, Orihime thought. She had to think about it for a moment, not knowing what she should say. Had she been well? Healthy, maybe. Had she been fine? That would be a lie in all practicality, and she was horrible at lying to Ichigo—he could always see through her. That was the Ichigo—the Kurosaki kun that she had always known.

That sparked the idea in her head. To see if he was still himself, to see if he had changed beyond her ability to cope with a new reality, a new personality.

"I've been fine, Kurosaki kun. Just... busy. Confused a lot, but fine overall."

His frown was immediate and deep. "Don't lie to me, Inoue. You've never been good at it. How have you been, really?"

She looked at the ground. He was Kurosaki kun, he hadn't changed at all. He was himself, still frowning at everything, still able to see through her as if she was invisible.

Still the man who held her heart without any intention of doing so. Still the man who had broken and mended it so many times, until it was if there was nothing but scar tissue left to beat and keep her alive. Nothing but what her experiences had made her, nothing left of herself. She was not her own person, she was the sum and results of her combined experiences. She was invisible, she knew. Ichigo could see right through her, he knew what she was made out of.

Scar tissue, the result of a lifetime of wrong promises and hopes, and their combined affect on what was left of her.

She was crying again. Dammit, she hated when she cried. She hated crying in front of people—she hadn't cried in front of anybody but her own reflection in dozens, even hundreds of years. And yet here she was, crying in front of Ichigo for the second time that day, even in the last hour. How pathetic.

"I missed you so much," she managed to get out. "All of you, I always wanted to see you. I always wanted to see what had happened to your soul, how you had been reborn, who you had married. I was so lonely for so long. I was used to it, but..." she looked up at him. "When you came here, still alive, I was... I could barely... I..."

And then he was hugging her again, and she was sobbing into his shoulder _again_. Her arms were folded up into her chest, and his arms encircles her completely. Her knees collapsed, and she couldn't hold herself up. He took her and half dragged, half carried her onto her bed. He set her down and scooted her legs onto the mattress, finally laying her down. She lay on her side, curled into a ball, sobbing. He arranged the two of them on the bed so that he was sitting with his legs falling off the side and her head in his lap, facing away from him, his back resting on the wall behind him. His hand entered the tips of her hair, playing with it. It was subconscious, though. He did it without thinking, without realizing the soothing impact it had on Orihime.

Her tears quieted again. She was still for a while, but finally got up the courage to turn onto her back, so that she was still in his lap, but looking at his face as opposed to his knees. His hands were still playing with her hair, but she didn't notice—in fact, she didn't seem to be noticing anything except his face, his eyes. It was a mark of how serious the situation was that she didn't even notice how close her head was to his... manhood.

"I'm sorry, Kurosaki-kun."

"For what?" his head tilted when he spoke, and somehow, he looked both warped and upside down now. It was cute, the kind of thing that made her want to laugh.

"For lying to you."

His head turned back to what would be a normal angle if she had been looking from a normal point of view. He looked... intense, and a rueful smile took over his face.

"You know that I should be the one apologizing. I broke my promise to you. I said that I would save you, protect you always. I failed. That makes me lower than scum. I'm so sorry that I couldn't keep a simple promise. I made it to you, I made it to myself, but I still couldn't..."

His gaze shifted to what was in reality up, but to their warped perspective away from her. "I wanted to make it up to you, Inoue. I heard where you had gone, and I felt like I owed you a serious debt. I felt like I needed to at least keep my promise to you. I mean, what kind of a punk," Orihime had to keep herself from giggling—his unique terminology still hadn't changed. "makes a promise to someone, let alone a girl, and then, rather than keeping the promise, makes the girl do for him what he said he would do for her? That is so twisted. So wrong. I..." He looked back down at her. "When you left, I decided that I would do whatever it took to keep that promise.

"I lived out another few years of my life as a human, long enough to make sure that my sisters would be okay, and then arranged to have my body killed. I think I was... Twenty-five, or around there. I went to Soul Society, and talked to Yamamoto. He said that I had two hundred years to become good enough, to train to go there. So I trained, I got very strong. I used to fight Renji, and he got awfully good, as well. He's a captain, now, by the way. He took Byakuya's spot."

A shot of pain went through Orihime at the mention of Byakuya's name, but she ignored it—now was not the time.

"And then I finally made it here, and you were the first person that I saw, but you were so different, you weren't... you didn't laugh, you didn't spend all of your time eating. You were strong, and cold, and untouchable. But I spent two hundred years making sure that I got here, so when I got assigned to the guard, I took it as an opportunity to get closer to you. I worked for another sixty years, and now I'm here," and he paused, looked down at her, and smiled. He smiled, and oh, how beautiful it was, even from her warped vantage point. "And now I will keep my promise and protect you to the very end of my ability."

"You don't have to do that, you know. You got me back from Hueco Mundo, and that was more than enough. You did save me."

His frown was back. "I think... I intended it as a lifelong commitment, Inoue. I had no intention of you being somewhere that I couldn't watch over you. And now, I can make sure that you are safe again. It is my duty. I think..."

He was silent for a moment, and then "I think I was meant to die for you."

She sat up quickly, looking sideways at him. "Never say that, Kurosaki. Never, ever say that your life is worth less than mine. Your life carries dozens of times the weight of mine. There is no competition, and that is why I did what I did so long ago. I had no intention of letting you die, and if I had to become a killer to ensure your survival, then I would become a killer." her voice became quieter. "You had already shed so much blood, Kurosaki. I wanted you to have a chance at being normal. I didn't want you to have to live with that for the rest of your life."

"But I was prepared to do what I did, to take lives, Inoue. I was made for it."

"As was I," she responded. "I was prepared to do whatever it took to keep you alive, to keep you safe. You were... you are... the hope that everyone had. You embodied hope. You were strong, and determined, and young, and you were still only just beginning. I owed that to everyone else, and especially you.

"I am not sorry for what I did, nor will I ever be. Yes, I do live with the spirit of that... _thing_... inside me, and no, I don't like it, but I'm not sorry. I did what I had to do." she paused. "we all did what we had to do. It was war, Kurosaki. Bad things happen in war. You, of all people, know that."

She could tell that he didn't like it, but she could also tell that he was resigned. He knew that she would keep her stance, that she would not back down. And it was a good thing, too, that he recognized that. It was observant, and positively correct.

"So where do we go from here, Inoue?"

She stood up and walked across the room to the dresser, the vanity that held her haori. She picked it up and swung it onto her back, and tied it around her waist.

"Now," she said evenly, "we will go through our duties as we are supposed to. I will be Chief Caregiver Inoue, and you will be Ichigo, my guard." She looked up at him, and her gaze softened, along with her voice. "Times are different now, Kurosaki. We can become friends, but we have duties."

She turned around to face the mirror. She slowly braided her hair, bringing it back to the left of her face. She wrapped the silver chain back into it, and turned around again to face him when she had finished. He was standing now, with Zangetsu on his back and his hands in fists on his front.

She looked at a clock that was on the wall above her bed. "It is six thirty, Ichigo," She said, her voice the cool, in-control voice that her position required. "You are expected back here at twelve o'clock, midnight. Don't be late."

He nodded and left.

He didn't hear her belated whisper. "I couldn't stand it if you were late."


	12. Schedule

Hey guys,

This is the chapter that makes this story M, methinks. There's almost sex, and it gets a bit graphic. Sorry, But I'm gonna have to change the rating on this. Really, I just wanted to see if I could do a sex scene decently, and I was going to have this at some point, so... Oh well. If this comes out well, I'll write one later, for real. Sex is going to be a driving force in a lot of this story, methinks. I'm sorry if you guys don't read from here on because of this, but at least you've been warned. I'll but an ALL CAPS announcement around the sex scene, so you'll know when to back off and when to start again.

I finally figured out the plot for the rest of this story! I feel like I should get three cheers for this, it's been bugging me for a long time that I didn't have a plot figured out. I don't have a chapter count done yet, and even when I do have one, don't count on it—I was originally going to be at this point by chapter five, and see how well that worked.

I meant to get this out last weekend, but I got sick, and, at the current time, have lost my voice. I was pretty much unconscious on the floor of my bathroom for one day, and I spent the next three in bed. Yeah, it was awesome. I hate being sick. But what really hurt was that I missed 3 days of school, which sucks, because I have a bunch of AP classes (for those who don't know, AP classes are college level classes that you can take in high school. In my case, I'm a junior in high school who is the age of a Sophomore who is taking a college class. Or, to be accurate, 3 of them.) and I can't afford to miss a day most of the time, let alone 3. Can you say makeup work?

Last chapter, Orihime was about to start singing a song, and I guess the title got cut out by the website. The song is S u p e r c a l I f r a g I l I s t I c e x p I a l I d o c I o u s. take out the spaces if you don't get it. It's the song from Mary Poppins, the thing to say when there's nothing else to say.

Emmy

[THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE SEX SCENE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.]

He was kissing her, her body, she realized. Her eyes were shut, and she hadn't realized what was happeneing. His lips caressed above her belly button as his hands slowly rubbed the area next to his head, underneath her breasts. Her stomach felt warm, and every time his fingers made a pass, she felt her muscles rippling, her back lifting off of the sheets as she fought to regain control of her body. His fingers ran down to below her belly button, but still on the front of her body, not onto her hips. She had to fight to keep herself from moaning.

His hands were on her sides now, and there was simply no chance of her remaining silent. His right hand slipped around her to touch her spine, as his other hand rubbed her side and he kissed her belly button, his tongue slipping inside, making her feel warmth all the way into her toes. Her back arched, her moan turning into an almost whine as her hands gripped the sheets beside her, helping to keep her weight off the sheets and closer to him, to Ichigo.

She could feel him smiling as he moved his hand from her side up to her breast, his tongue now making slow circles around her belly button, pausing occasionally to blow air and make her cold, only to swoop back and make her hot all over again. His hand was still on her back, pressing her up to him, an his other, on her breast—it was beyond godly. Her hands slipped from the sheets as her grip became slippery from the sweat that she realized was streaming from every pore in her body, in an attempt to cool her down. But somehow, all that the sweat was doing was make her skin tingle as it evaporated, made her more aware of her surroundings. It made everything... better.

As he continued moving his tongue on her stomach, she felt his hand start to move, slowly massaging the flesh that was her breast, squeezing the way that felt good. It was painful, a little bit, but the pain faded away in the light of everything else that was happening. She felt only pleasure, and she found her body moving toward it, against her mind's permission. She didn't care, though. She wouldn't want to stop, even if she was conscious of what she was doing.

She was pushing herself into his hand, the one on her breast, but it was lopsided. Her hands had regained their grip on the sheets, and she was pushing herself towards him, though from one side only. When he didn't push back hard enough, however, she miscalculated and went spinning over to land on her front.

[END OF SEX SCENE]

She jerked awake, her right hand trapped beneath her right breast, her breath labored, and her panties... well, she was ashamed to admit how much she had enjoyed the dream.

She pulled her hand out from under herself and slammed it into the mattress beside her. Dammit! And the worst part? She didn't even know what she was cursing, herself for having the dream in the first place, or him for being the object of that dream and tempting her, or at the dream for ending before she got to the good part. Well, the best part—it was all good.

She curled up on her side, her knees drawn up into her chest in the fetal position. She hated when this happened, even though it was virtually every night. It was made worse by the fact that Ichigo was guarding her now, sometimes coming into her room at night to make sure that she was still there and alright. He might hear her talk in her sleep.

Now that, she thought, was a truly horrifying possibility.

She lifted her head to look around the room, and, discovering that there was nobody else there, got up and went to take a shower to calm herself down. She had to make herself presentable this morning—it was her weekly checkup with her proteges (all two of them, she added to herself sarcastically), and they had to respect her. She had to be decent.

And so began her day.

It was like every day of the last sixty-some years, except this one came with the added bonus of having the man involved right outside the door as opposed to across the palace. It brought back some of the risk. And the really bad part was that him being there, and the possibility of knowing, made it feel even better. The danger was somehow...

She couldn't even bring herself to think it. She stood at the sink in front of her mirror, staring at her reflection—she looked like hell. Turning sideways, she went to the bath tub and started on her less-than-scheduled cleaning ritual.

The long soak did her good, and relaxed her muscles. She dipped her head back into the tub, filling her hair with the soapy water—she doesn't feel like using shampoo or conditioner, and soap was good for the scalp. Coming back up, she squeegeed her hair into the tub and got out, getting dressed and doing her hair in her newly adopted style. She looked at the strawberry charm for a moment, and had to stop herself from giggling as she walked away from the vanity, not tempted to cry for the first time in something like eternity.

He was outside of her room, in the room that was used as a welcoming hall of sorts. He was standing against the wall with a book in his hand, Zangetsu leaning on the wall next to him. He was with Hiroshi, one of her guards. She had four guards, all of them men, and all of them extremely good soldiers. She loved all of them, in truth. She had spent a lot of time with each of them as they had been assigned to her, first Hiroshi and Arata, who she held great affection for. They were brothers, it turned out, and had been born as humans to the same mother and father. They looked very similar, in the way that siblings do. Each was handsome and strong, as their hair was the same color, brown that somehow got reddish towards the tips. She felt bad for knowing that they were handsome, but not being able to do anything. They were far too kind to her, and she was far too cold to them, but at least they had each other. It was extremely rare that birth brothers should find one another after death, and even rarer that they should be so talented, and be able to make it all the way to the Royal Realm.

They were wonderful, though very different: Arata, who was older, seemed like the younger of the two, being a bit playful and silly, laughing at things that not even Orihime's old self would have laughed at, which was saying something. Orihime thought of Arata with a lot of fondness, as the person that she wished she could have been, if she had done right in her life, and not been so weak. He was inspiration to her. If she had known his as a human, she thought, she might have been good friends with the man, they were just so similar.

Hiroshi, meanwhile, was the silent and serious one. He took his duties to be more important than anything, and was always three minutes early to his shift. Never even once had he ever entered the inside of her bedroom, saying that he had to respect her. He always came and checked in with her, telling her that he was on duty now, as he always told her when he was leaving, unless she was asleep. He never called her by her first name, Orihime, in spite of her stomping it into the other two, and instead stubbornly stuck to "Inoue Sama," which he knew drove her nuts. But it was fine—he was loyal and good, a smart, strong man who had been nothing but friendly and supportive of her since they had met.

There was, however, a problem, Orihime realized. If Hiroshi was here, it must be early—his shift ended at six in the morning.

Perfect—another early start.

Hiroshi was at the table, and, like Ichigo, had a book in hand. It was then that Orihime realized that both of her guards had books, but neither were open, which is to say that neither of them had been reading. They must have been talking, though what about, she didn't know. She wondered if they were becoming friends—she hoped so. Life would be easier if they could be friends.

"Good morning, Hiroshi, Ichigo."

"Good morning, Inoue Sama."

"Good morning, Orihime."

The two men looked at each other before quickly looking away—they had clearly been talking about her when she had entered. She held back a sigh. Oh well, they were allowed to talk about whatever they wanted to talk about, it was none of her business. She wished that she could bring herself to look into their heads, but she would never have been able to forgive herself. All people deserved their privacy.

"What time is it?" Orihime asked, mainly to try and break up the obvious tension in the air.

Ichigo checked his watch, something that he had managed to keep from his time in Soul Society. They were useful things, though Orihime had little desire for them. She would have been able to know the time perfectly well if there had been any sign of the sun nearby, which was how she had grown accustomed to telling the time. It was just the design of her chamber that kept her from telling.

"Six-Twenty," Ichigo read.

Orihime was confused. "Six-Twenty?" she looked to Hiroshi. "Why are you still here, then? Your shift ends at six."

He looked confused. "It does? Since when?"

"Since Ichigo..." she trailed off. "Oh," she sighed. "I forgot to tell you all about the new schedule, didn't I?"

He barely even cracked a smile. "apparently, Inoue Sama."

She sighed. She was always doing things like this. "Can you get your brother and Musaru awake and here, please? I'm sorry about this, I can't believe I forgot to tell you all."

He bowed. "Of course, Inoue Sama." he backed out of the room to get the other guards.

She sat down at the table and put her head in her hands. What a way to start a day that was supposed to be composed and formal. She forgot that Ichigo was in the room as she sighed in frustration.

"Are they all that stiff?"

She jumped, startled, and looked back around at Ichigo, who was behind her, still leaning against the wall. "What?"

"Your other guards. Are they all so... formal with you?"

She sighed. It was a sighing morning, apparently. "No, that's just Hiroshi. He's a bit more uptight than the others here. It's not anything to hold against him, it's just how he is." she gave him what she hoped amounted to a stern look. "Try and get along with him. He's a good guy. He's a bit like Uryuu, actually. Except he's a Soul Reaper, so you don't have any excuse to hate him or vice versa."

Ichigo frowned deeper. "Ishida... I'd forgotten about him for a while. Filthy hypocrite."

He continued when Orihime looked surprised. "He ran off with Nemu, Mayuri's daughter. The guy hates Soul Reapers, apparently, and then runs off and gets married to one. Nobody knows where they are—I guess Urahara made them gigais like the one he made for Rukia way back that takes away soul powers. They're probably dead and reborn by now."

Orihime found herself smiling. "You should be happy for him, Ichigo." she said. "Not everybody can find happiness with somebody they love. Those who do are very lucky, and should be seen as such." She was able to keep the jealousy out of her voice, but only just. She was looking away from him when she said it, and thank God for that. Before he had time to respond, Hiroshi came back into the room, along with his brother Arata and Musaru. She looked up and smiled at them, inviting them to sit down. She tunred to Ichigo and did the same to him, asking him to take a seat. "I'll be right back," she said. "I'm going to make us all some tea. In the mean time, please get to know each other." and she walked back into her room to the kitchen.

She busied herself with the tea, making as much noise and movement as she could in the hopes that it would stop her from listening in on their conversation. But oh, was it tempting. No, she told herself, you won't stoop so low as to spy on a conversation made by your allies. She told herself this and made the tea, still making as much noise and bustle as she could, and still not listening in on their conversation.

They were talking when she came in ("Pshh, you think you'd win a fight? I'll kick your ass right here and now, berry boy."), and she let them go at it for a while as she set the tea around for each of them. Oh her boys. She truly loved all of them.

Sitting down in her chair and sipping her tea, she cleared her throat, and they all fell silent and looked at her at once—they knew when to be quiet.

"I'm sorry to do this to you boys, but there's been a change in schedule. Ichigo here (Atara let out a cough that somehow sounded similar to "berry boy," earning him a reproaching look from Orihime before she continued) is now in the guard, which means shorter shifts."

They nodded, though stayed completely silent. They knew what this meant—more rest time, something all of them would enjoy.

"Ichigo, your shift is from midnight to noon. Atara is from noon to midnight. Then Hiroshi, you get six at night until six in the morning, Which means Musaru, you get six in the morning until six at night. They're still long shifts, I know, but at least it's shorter than they were, and now you get a longer break, too."

Musaru let out a low whistle. "12 hours... what will we do with ourselves?" He was smiling, of course, but she knew that he was legitimately worried. They were good friends, and he was extremely loyal to her—he didn't like spending time away from the subject of his professional adoration.

"You'll just have to spend more time with a certain Chouko." She told him, smiling slightly. He blushed—he hadn't been aware that she knew about his partner. She would have had to be a little bit stupid to not notice, though; she was one of Orihime's proteges, all two of them. She could have been stupid to not notice how distracted they seemed to be whenever they were in the same room, or how whenever he got off duty, he went to the caregiver dormitories. She winked at him and looked bck towards the other three.

"Okay, so what are you hours now?"

"Six in the morning until six at night," said Musaru promptly.

"Good. Ichigo?"

"Midnight to noon."

"Atara?"

"noon to midnight."

"And Hiroshi?"

"Six at night until six in the morning, right, Inoue Sama?"

Orihime smiled. "Yes. You're luck, though, you only have one new time to remember. You get to leave early now, but at least you get here at the same time, so your sleeping schedule shouldn't be too far off. You still start at the same time, right?"

"yes," Hisroshi replied. "Six at night to six in the morning. I've got it now, Inoue Sama. Thank you."

She hated how he was still calling her that. Oh well, some things never change, apparently. "I'm sorry that I forgot to tell you all. This starts today, so if you don't have a shift for a while, you can go back to sleep. Hiroshi, your break just started, so you could go and get some sleep if you want."

"Yes, Inoue Sama. Please excuse me," and he bowed and left, taking his zanpakuto with him, apparently to go to sleep.

Orihime sighed and looked back to her other guards. "I'll let you go, now. Ichigo and Musaru, you're with me. Atara, you can go to bed if you want. I'll see you at noon, though I'm not sure where I'll be."

He nodded. "Of course, Orihime Sama. I'll see you later." and he too left, though Orihime couldn't tell if it was to go to sleep or otherwise.

"Well then," Orihime turned to the two men still with her. "I'll clean up the tea, and then we can get going, alright?"

They nodded, and soon she was on her way, the two of them trailing a few feet behind her, Zanpakuto sheathed, but always within reach.


	13. Acoustics

Yo,

Last chapter was boring. I would say I'm sorry, because I am, but you all don't want to hear it. So oh well. I thought it was needed after 3000-some words of pure romantic fluff.

So, apparently, I have a really cool reader in Bermuda who got 14 hits. I'm curious as to how that happened, but I guess a chapter or two must have been reloaded or something like that. Anyways, this chapter is to you, my Bermudan (?) reader. You're awesome.

I despise how short this chapter is, but... I couldn't figure out any better way to do it. Upcoming chapters are going to be longer—have you noticed how my chapters are getting steadily longer? Except this one, apparently, but oh well. I'll make up for it, I promise.

Here goes,

Emmy

6:17 in the evening, the day before.

Hiroshi was annoyed—he couldn't find Inoue Sama. His shift had started almost twenty minutes ago, at six, and she was nowhere to be found. He tried everywhere he could think of besides her bedroom. She had said that she would be training into the evening, and that she didn't know where she would end up, though. At least she had told him that she didn't know where she would be. She was a far sight better than his brother, that was for sure.

He sighed, resigned. He knew where she must be, if she wasn't anywhere else in the castle.

He hurried to the door of her chambers, and called for her. There was no answer, but that was alright. She must have been in her private room. He continued on to the door, where he would usually knock and announce his presence. He never went in; it wasn't proper for a man to enter a woman's private chamber unless they were married or siblings. He couldn't help that he was traditional, it was just how he was. He respected people, was that such a crime?

His footsteps didn't echo on the floor of the outer room—Inoue Sama liked rugs, for some reason, and that liking both made her rooms warmer and the acoustics better than the rest of the palace.

It was luck for him that his feet didn't make any noise, otherwise he wouldn't have heard what he did.

"... than mine. Your life carries dozens of times the weight of mine. There is no competition, and that is why I did what I did so long ago. I had no intention of letting you die, and if I had to become a killer to ensure your survival, then I would become a killer."

Her voice grew quieter, which made hearing her nearly impossible. He strained his ears, though, and managed to hear some of what was being said. "... so much blood, Kurosaki. I wanted you to have a chance at being normal. I didn't want you to have to live with that for the rest of your life."

And another voice chimed up, a man's voice. He tried, but Hiroshi couldn't remember the voice, not its owner. "But I was prepared to do what I did, to take lives, Inoue. I was made for it."

"As was I," was the quick response, which was louder. Hiroshi's brow furrowed. What was this?

"I was prepared to do whatever it took to keep you alive, to keep you safe. You were... you are... the hope that everyone had. You embodied hope. You were strong, and determined, and young, and you were only just beginning. I owed that to everyone else, and especially you. I am not sorry for what I did, nor will I ever be. Yes, I do live with the spirit of that... _thing_... inside me, and no, I don't like it, but I'm not sorry. I did what I had to do." she paused. "we all did what we had to do. It was war, Kurosaki. Bad things happen in war. You, of all people, know that."

What was she saying? She had dedicated her life to someone, to this man? What was she talking about? How dare she dedicate her life to someone? She was a Chief Caregiver. She had no business dedicating herself to anybody besides the Royal Family. Unless... Was he the King? No, she had called him... Kuro- something. That wasn't the King. Then who was he?

"So where to we go from here, Inoue?"

He heard something that sounded like the muffled shuffling of clothes. "Now, we will go through our duties as we are supposed to. I will be Chief Caregiver Inoue, and you will be Ichigo, my guard." Her voice quieted again, and she seemed to be smiling sadly. He had almost never seen her smile, even sadly. "Times are different now, Kurosaki. We can become friends, but we have duties."

There was silence for a while. Then...

"It is six thirty, Ichigo," She sounded like her normal self, now. She was cold, in control, perfect. She was a chief caregiver, after all, for a reason. "You are expected back here at twelve o'clock, midnight. Don't be late."

Muffled footsteps came close to the door. "Damn," Hisroshi hissed, as he shunpo'd away. He hid himself in his apartment, and listened as the newcomer, this "Kurosaki Ichigo" passed by the door, to do who knew what.

Competition, he knew. Kurosaki Ichigo was competition.


	14. Name

Ready for the song that I have stuck in my head? Puff the Magic Dragon, by Peter, Paul, and Mary. And I'm not on any drugs right now, I swear. It's bizarre.

Also, I just got up a one-shot story about Benihime, Urahara's zanpakuto. If you have time, go check it out, though I don't know if it makes sense to a normal reader. Oh well.

If you haven't read The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, I suggest you read it. This chapter has some references from in it, and while I put in a summary, it's not as effective unless you've read the book. It's a very fast read, and my copy is a free ebook download. You don't have to read it, but I would. And it affects the entire rest of the story, not just this chapter.

Also—this chapter was going to be longer, but for many reasons that I'm not going to go into, I have no time this weekend to do anything even remotely normal, so I'm getting this much out while I can. Again, I hate how short it is.

Enjoy!

Emmy

5:23 AM, The Next Morning:

Ichigo loved reading, he always had. It was one of his vices, in all honesty—it went entirely against the image he had always tried to project for other people. But he was smarter than he looked, just like he was far more sensitive than almost anybody had ever had the chance to discover. In truth, Ichigo was quiet guy, kind, sensitive even. Somehow, though, he had lost that part of him when his mother died. It had gotten covered up by the scowl mask, the mask that told people to fuck off or they would get hurt. It usually worked, too, and people let him alone.

Reading allowed him to imagine, something he didn't do all that often. As soft as he was, he really did not daydream. He was down-to-Earth, he knew what the truth was, and was always able to live in it. He was lucky in that way, not everybody was able to be so honest with themselves. Reading, though... reading let Ichigo get away. It let him become innocent, sweet, kind. It allowed him to imagine what he could have been like if he hadn't gotten so messed up.

Yes, Ichigo loved reading. And, so concluding, he looked back down to continue his perusal of his latest acquirement: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. It was in English, something which Ichigo was a bit proud of—he'd learned English a long time ago, in an attempt to be able to understand just what the _hell_ William Shakespeare had been talking about. But it was a fact that many of his favorite books were written in English, and were better read in their original language.

He liked this book. It was sad, the story of a father and son in a world after the apocalypse. They went through the entire story, doing nothing but walk south, to try and find a warmer place so that they could survive. It was a heart-wrenching story, and, though he would never admit it out loud, Ichigo had almost found himself crying when he read about a baby who had literally been burned on a spit. It was horrible, but somehow comforting. It was a book, so much worse than real life. Well, not life, but... his post-death equivalent.

He liked the book. As much as his life was better, he saw parallels to how he lived. "He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: if he is not the word of God, God never spoke."

The line always made him smile. It was so true; that child was his warrant.

Though she wasn't such a child anymore, was she? She was not clumsy, she didn't blush, she almost never admitted to weakness. She was smart, practically sharp. She had changed, but he knew it was still her.

Orihime would never be anything less than Orihime to him.

He sighed to himself. He had changed, too, that was for sure.

He hadn't lied to her the night before. He had always felt bad about what had happened, how he had never fulfilled his promise. It had never sat right, so to speak. He was a man of his word, if nothing else. There was simply no other option to him, there never had been. He had to protect her, he owed that to her, who had saved him many a time before.

Talking to her the night before had been... wonderful. It had been a pay off, assurance that he had been in the right, that she felt the same as he did. It swept away any doubts he might have had about what he was doing here, why he was protecting her. It reminded him that he was in the right.

No matter how strong she acted, she was weak. She was not made to fight. It was not in her character to kill. He hated that she had been forced to do it.

She was, after all, his warrant. She was the reason that he existed, that was the conclusion that logic had led him to. There was nothing left for him but to protect her. It was a burden he had placed upon himself, one that he had set up. He had waited until he was sure he would have no farther responsibility, and then he had gone to fulfill the one duty that he had left, his duty to her, and even to himself, to fulfill a promise he had made. A promise to himself.

He was not so low as to go back on something like that.

A huff from the other man in the room shook Ichigo out of his musings. He looked up to see the man with blond hair that was parted and combed back so disgustingly perfectly it was painful to look at. What was his name... Hiro? No, it was Hiro-something, another syllable. Oh well, he shrugged to himself, he'd hear it again later and save himself the embarrassment of not remembering.

Hiro-something was sitting across from him at the table, also with a book. But unlike Ichigo, the book wasn't even open. Instead, the man was looking sideways at the wall, as if he was trying to look anywhere but straight forwards. Ichigo looked up up for a moment, and, seeing nothing to warrant any real questions, looked back down at his own book and started reading.

The huffs kept coming. For some forty five minutes, Ichigo suffered through them in silence, though he wasn't reading nearly as much as he would have liked to. Finally, he gave up—the sound was just too damned infuriating.

"Are you alright?"

Hiro-something looked over. Man, that must have hurt his neck, to stay in that position for a full forty five minutes. "Of course, why wouldn't I be alright?"

Ichigo shrugged and went back to his book, trying very hard not to notice or care when Hiro-something kept right on huffing away at the wall. What did the wall do to him, Ichigo wondered.

This was pointless, Ichigo decided after a few minutes. He might as well just go and try to make conversation with the man. What to say, what to say...

Crap. He still didn't remember the guy's name. Crap!

Fine. "Hey, um, I forgot your name. What is it again?"

The man looked at him like he was complete dirt. "Hiroshi, I'm Hiroshi."

Hisroshi, that was it. Well, at least he'd gotten the first half right. "Hi, I'm--"

"Kurosaki Ichigo."

Ichigo raised his eyebrows in surprise. "How do you know my name?"

"You told me your name when you walked in, Kurosaki. I can't help it that I have a better memory than you." yep, he was a stuffy bastard, that was for sure. What was it with him and stuffy bastards?

"I'm sorry, I'm not the best with names."

"So I see," Hiroshi said, and then looked back towards the wall.

Stuffy bastard wasn't strong enough, Ichigo decided. Maybe a pompous asshole worked better.

Ichigo got up out of his chair, deciding that he needed to stretch his legs some. And maybe that he needed to get away from the pompous asshole. He leaned his back against the wall behind where the chair he had been sitting in was and set Zangetsu on the floor beside him. He crossed his arms across his chest and looked right at Hiroshi, to see if he could annoy him into at least giving a form of conversation besides huffing at the wall in the other direction.

It only took a few minutes. "What do you _want_?"

Finally, actual words. "I want to know what your problem is with me. What did I do?"

He sneered. "You went into Inoue Sama's chamber."

"So? Orihime told me that I could go in."

"And you call her... by her first name. She is above you in status, you should call her by her last name, and for God's sake, give her an honorific. You don't measure up to her by any means."

"I'm well aware that I'm not as good as her in any arena." _The child was his warrant_. "She only asked me to call her by her first name, why would I disobey an order?"

Hiroshi huffed again. No response, apparently. That was interesting.

"Look, I don't want to start a fight with you, I just... We're going to have to spend time together, so I think it would be for the better if we could at least learn how to get along, even if it is fake."

Hiroshi turned to glare at Ichigo, but before he could open his mouth, none other than the Chief Caregiver herself walked in, wondering what time it was.

Ichigo was introduced to the other members of the guard, Atara and Musaru. He liked Musaru the most. He liked his quiet personality, the silent strength he exuded. Atara was alright, but he emanated Keigo, back from the old days of when Ichigo had been alive, some two hundred and fifty years ago.

God, had it really been that long?

Yes. Yes, it had been that long. And the years were wearing.

He was older now that he used to be, physically, let alone mentally. He had grey hairs, as his father had, though no receding hairline, and thank God for that. But... he was old. He could feel it.

He shook himself out of those thoughts. They were no good to think, and got him nowhere.

He'd missed a lot, apparently—Hiroshi and Atara were gone, as was Orihime with the tea cups. That left him and Musaru, the fellow he liked.

He looked weird, even for a Shinigami. His hair was platinum blonde on the right side, and tied into a low side ponytail, while the other half was dark blue and fell in front of that half of his face. He didn't look Japanese, either—his eyes curved down as opposed to up, which made him, what... Mongolian? Ichigo considered it—he had high cheekbones, which helped the Mongolian theory.

He was built similarly to Ichigo, though he was smoother, somehow, less rugged. He was strong, almost like Byakuya. Ichigo couldn't imagine what it would be like to fight this man—it was a good thing that he would never have to.

Orihime came back in, and the three of them were on their way.


	15. Bruises

I'm so sorry that this chapter took so long. I have two defenses—first, I told you many times that I wrote when the muse hit me, and second, I had finals. Yucky yucky yucky. It was all bad. I hope you like this, though.

It's short again. I'm sorry. I really am trying, I swear. There is a legitimate plan for here on out.

Review, if you would be so kind,

**Emmy**

A hundred years passed.

It was a long time. A hundred years... A hundred years spent with him at her side, even if it wasn't how her dreams had always played out. They weren't together, they couldn't be, but... he was there, with her.

They were friends, now. Ichigo and Orihime, the comedic duo, with Orihime always giggling behind her hand as Ichigo tried desperately to make himself look like less of a moron. They called each other by their first names, in the way that friends do. Ichigo and Orihime. Orihime and Ichigo.

She was happy. She was with him.

She wanted so much more, she craved everything that there was to desire. But she had always gone without it, and there was nothing more that she could demand. If he didn't love her, than he didn't love her, and that was that. She would just rejoice at the simple pleasure of his company, his constant presence at her side. She must.

He hadn't changed as much as she thought he would—yes, there were differences now. He was kinder than he used to be, more open about his personality and opinions. But he was still himself, still frowning as a default and only really smiling when she did something to warrant his amusement.

Still Ichigo.

She was aging, now. She could feel herself grow older, much faster that she had been able to feel before. She could sense her bones growing weaker, ever so slowly. She could feel everything speeding up around her, and still feel herself slowing down at the same time.

It was a strange feeling.

She resembled him, now. Her physical body was almost as old as his, in the deep, unfathomable recesses of nearing middle age. Her growth spurt was unexpected, but not unwelcome.

She hated being better than him. She hated being considered more beautiful, when clearly his soul was far less tarnished that her own.

She didn't think of killing herself so much anymore. The thoughts still came into her head, but she was often able to shove them right back out by telling herself that Ichigo wouldn't want that, and that Ichigo would hate himself if anything happened to her, because Ichigo kept his promises.

Ichigo. Kurosaki Kun no more. His last name was of no importance when they were nothing more than friends. His last name had nothing to do with him if she was not in his interests, so she didn't call him by it. He was Ichigo, and she was Orihime. It was as simple as that.

A hundred years.

It was agony. A hundred years of shame, of having to look into his eyes and know that she wasn't telling him the truth when she said he was her friend. A hundred years of trying to treat him the same way that she treated everyone else. A hundred years of hiding, which wasn't as easy as it had been when it was only her, and Ichigo himself wasn't there every day to make it harder.

Harder. Hm...

Then there was that.

Her body. Her traitorous, damned, lusty, god forsaken body.

How she hated it.

She hated how she lusted after him. She saw him every night, his body in all its glory, his expressions as she imagined he could look, the feelings he could invoke in her. She imagined how she would feel when she felt his eyes on her body, fantasized of not being self-conscious. She dreamed of having him, having everything, being able to love him in every way.

And every morning, she woke, and showered, and dressed, and told herself that she could ignore her body, that she would ignore her body, that she was above her body's primal instinct. She was dead, wasn't she? Having children was not exactly a biological need.

But she couldn't ignore it when the five of them went out to train, and Ichigo went around shirtless, sweat falling down his chest, his breathing labored, his muscles tense. She couldn't ignore the throbbing beat of her heart, and something else, whenever she saw his movements, smooth and strong and masculine.

He wasn't trying to do this to her, she knew. He didn't have to try to make her lust after him, to love him. He didn't try to cause her pain, the pain of knowing she couldn't have him.

He just did. He couldn't help it. But more than that, he couldn't know.

He wouldn't know.

She comforted herself with the idea that she wasn't really lying. She was withholding the truth, but she had never yet lied directly. It was a partial untruth, the little white lie that she kept clutched tight to her heart every moment of every day. It was a little thing, after all, that she loved him. Many women have loved many men over the course of time. To say that one unrequited love out of millions was so large would have been selfish and wrong, not to mention untrue.

Orihime didn't fool herself. She knew that she didn't matter.

But she knew with just as much conviction that he did matter, that Ichigo was important. She knew that she had to do everything that she could for him, that it was her duty.

She chose her path, and she dealt with it.

And she was happy. Miserable, and in eternal agony, but... She was happy.

And in this way, a hundred years passed in the dead life of one Orihime.

~*~*~*~

Another hundred years passed.

Orihime's guard grew by another two members. There were six guards, enough to have three on duty at a time.

Orihime's power grew. She grew as well, to hate it even more, the damned sword. Well, she didn't hate the sword... she hated what it could do, what she had often been forced to do with it. She couldn't bring herself to hate that woman, who stood there silently with her dark air and white dress, constantly fading into the background of the sky that was below and above her at the same time. She didn't hate the spirit, she hated the power.

Orihime wasn't meant for power. She never had been.

It was a hundred years.

They were very nostalgic. She and Ichigo often sat for hours talking about the old days, about what had happened to all of their old friends, and where they were now. Ichigo didn't know a whole lot, as he'd lost contact after school and died, becoming a Soul Reaper before he could really find out anything about where the rest of them were.

He'd never seen Tatsuki, he'd said. She'd never been found. He'd looked, he told her, for weeks, but couldn't find her. She cried when she heard this. Her best friend, missing. Forever.

She didn't allow herself to dwell on it. She couldn't.

Orihime had no time.

In a hundred years, Orihime had no time do dwell, not on Tatsuki, at least. She had time, of course, and even time that was spent dwelling. But none of it was for her friend. None could be spared. Every last moment was dedicated to him.

She knew that she was becoming obsessed. She knew herself as someone who couldn't let go, who cared and couldn't stop herself from caring, but... She was obsessed.

No one knew, at least she didn't think anyone did. Nobody knew how much time she spent rubbing her thighs together, or grinding her hips unconsciously against a pillow. It wasn't intentional, it just happened, like sighing. It couldn't be stopped when she was alone.

She was so distracted that she barely even notices when Hiroshi started having sex with one of her students (of whom there were now five). In Orihime's defense, it was their private life, and she had no right to know, but... These were the kinds of things that she noticed. She understood relationships, extremely well, considering that she had never been in a relationship of her own, but she knew the mindset, understood the way that it changed people. She liked watching people who were in relationships, and often found herself doing so for no reason besides that there was nothing better for her to do. Well, that and the loneliness.

That was why she wondered why it took so long for her to notice the bruises.

They weren't on Hirsoshi, but on Akemi, Orihime's student. They were on her arms as far as Orihime could tell, and nasty looking too. Some were black, and there were many that had turned a sickly looking green color, as if they had been there for a while but were fading. There weren't the wounds of training, they were the bruises of abuse. Which meant...

Hiroshi. He was...

Why would he do that? Hiroshi was a good man. He wouldn't abuse a girl, he had to much respect for women. Orihime would know, after some three hundred years if trying to egg him into calling her by her first name, let along without an honorific.

Orihime confronted Akemi about it, but Akemi just said that he was dominant, and that she was a masochist, and the pain helped. Orihime couldn't imagine how that could feel good, but it wasn't her life, it was Akemi's, and Akemi was free to live in whatever way she wanted to live.

Over the better part of a hundred years, an innocent girl wore bruises that she did not deserve.

Orihime aged some more, and while she was getting closer, she was still not the same age as Ichigo was. She still didn't know what was wrong with her body, and why the speed of her aging process was so indecisive of itself, but who was she to challenge the ways of the universe?

And in that way, another hundred years passes for Orihime.


	16. Departure

Another short chapter... I'm sorry. But at least I got it out quickly.

This is the beginning of the end of this story. There are several more chapters, for sure, but this is where everything will be legitimately planned, even if it doesn't seem that way. And the plan may very well change half way through, we'll just have to see.

Also—"very not good" is not a typo, it's just how I talk. I'm in 1984, the play, and I kind of started incorporating newspeak into my daily life in an attempt to remember my lines.

Ayako and Chiyo are the two new members of Orihime's guard that I mentioned last chapter. They're both girls.

**Emmy**

Four hundred and seventy years after Orihime's arrival in the Royal Realm:

There was going to be a new recruit, the messenger said. Orihime was to send one of her guards out to the portal to see her in and make sure she understood what was happening. It would be in two weeks. She knew nothing else of the new recruit.

~*~*~*~

'Hello, Mistress.'

Orihime sighed. 'Hello, Akiko. You've been rather talkative lately, haven't you?'

'But of course. I just wanted to talk to you, mistress. You don't seem otherwise engaged.'

It was true, of course. Orihime was resting at the moment, trying and failing miserably to go to sleep. Atara and Hiroshi were on duty, both outside of her room. Orihime was basically lying on her back immobile, trying to get her mind to shut the hell up and let her drift away.

It wasn't working. Clearly.

'Yes, of course you can talk to me, Akiko. What is it?'

'Well...'

'Yes?'

'I'm not so sure that you really want to know, now that I think about it. You'd be happier if you forgot.'

Orihime practically snorted. 'Tell me, Akiko, please. You can't start and then leave me hanging like that. What's wrong?'

Akiko paused, and Orihime realized that there was something very seriously wrong. Something bad. 'what is it, Akiko?'

'I was thrown out of the colony.'

Orihime had to fight back a gasp. That was very not good. 'What happened?'

'There was suspicion that I wasn't who I said I was. They accused me of being a traitor to the humans, and threw me out.'

'They're angry?'

'Very.'

Orihime was quiet for a while, thinking. And the meaning hit her, and the panic rose. 'Thank you for telling me this, Akiko.' She said finally. 'It was very important for somebody to hear. Thank you.'

'Of course, Mistress. Thank you for your time.' and then Akiko's presence left Orihime's mind. Now she knew that there was not any sleep to be had that night.

She knew what all of this meant.

Crap. Oh, fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. No, this was not good.

She must make sure that this was really happening. She would have to check.

She had something she needed to do.

Orihime quickly rose from her bed. She got dressed quickly, and glanced at the clock. 11:49. The only people out and about would be patrols. Good.

She left her room and went to see her two guards, Atara and Hiroshi. The two of them jumped to their feet, having been playing a game of chess over the table. At least they were awake, Orihime thought rather cynically. Many of the guard in this place were lazy, though they rarely made it to the Chief Caregivers. If they ever did make it that far, though, they were uncommonly good at what they did.

"Come," Orihime said. "We have some business to attend to. Please wake up Ichigo and Musaru, and bring them here immediately. Get Ayako and Chiyo, as well. Tell them to not make any noise or light that they can do without. We need to be stealthy."

Not too much time later, five people who belonged in the palace were gone over the wall, leaving a trail of unconscious and moderately injured guards behind them. They would all recover. Orihime didn't like it, but it was necessary, and they had no choice.

Secrecy was paramount.

It was early morning, just after midnight. The guards had all just changed, so at least the bodies wouldn't be discovered until the early wakers were up and about. Which wouldn't be long. And they would come to the Chief Caregivers for guidance, the voices of the King.

And that was the problem, wasn't it?

She was junior, of course, younger than most. She wouldn't be the first person summoned, but they would call her soon. And they couldn't know that she was gone.

Hiroshi and Ayako had been left behind. They could play dumb, they were both smart. Well, Hiroshi wasn't so much anymore, but Ayako could keep him in his place. She was clever enough for both of them, especially with Orihime's Bankai helping them out.

They wouldn't be discovered. Not unless...

Hikifune would understand, of course. Hikifune would not let anyone else in on what was happening.

Hikifune was too clairvoyant to not see through these things. She had her own powers, and she was clever. She would figure out what was happening. At least Orihime hoped she would.

But there was no time to waste in thought. Orihime turned her mind to running, going full speed ahead, stretching her muscles for the first time in a long while. In fact, now that she thought about it, the last time she had been this far away from the castle had been when she had gone to bring back Ichigo.

It had been a long time ago. She had been a different person.

They had little time to make it there. They needed to reach it by sunrise, some five hours away, at best. They had no chance in hell of making it, but they had to try. They had to get there, somehow. They could not afford to miss this chance.

~*~*~*~

Finally, he was gone. That bastard, the son of a bitch, the pansy, was gone. It was only him now, for the first time since he had come to this world. He didn't have her, but it wouldn't be too much longer. She would confront him eventually, and the heat of the argument would turn into the heat of passion, and...

He would have her.


	17. Dreams

I would re-read chapter two before you start this chapter, or at least skim over it. Some stuff from way back when makes a re-appearance here, and I'd love it if people could remember what I'm referencing.

I just started re-watching the Bleach anime, and I realized that Kenpachi is hilarious.

MLIA, right? I didn't mean for it to sound that way. My bad.

I liked the reviews last chapter, how nobody had any idea who the last POV was. And I'm not gonna tell you, you'll just have to figure it out yourselves. I'm evil, aren't I?

As I was writing this chapter, I realized that I couldn't remember my own story line or character names. Is that embarrassing, or what? I actually re-read my stuff for the first time, and I honestly have no idea how you guys like this story past chapter four, maybe five. I guess you do, if you're still reading it, but... I don't know whether to be thankful or what.

**Emmy**

Sato was beautiful. She was strong, everybody knew—she had even been strong as a human, many said. It was rumored that before she became a Soul Reaper, she had been a ruffian, a gangster, like Kenpachi of Zaraki had been.

Well, she _was_ the captain of the eleventh squad. The first woman to have that position, she was Kenpachi Sato. She had taken the position some two hundred years after she had died, trying and failing to get into Soul Reaper Academy some seven times before getting mad enough to kick the wall of the room where the testing was taking place, resulting in the collapse of the entire block.

Needless to say, they let her in soon thereafter.

In truth, she was needed. Many captain positions were still not filled, and though there were plenty of Soul Reapers, there weren't many of high enough caliber to fill the positions that were open. In truth, she was a rare person, a woman with the strength so rival any man, and a thirst for competition that was never sated. What made her different, though, was that she wanted only to be on top. She didn't enjoy fighting so much as she enjoyed winning, and she relished every victory that she earned.

She was well-liked in Soul Society, far more that Zaraki had been, and she seemed to have a sense of responsibility. Moreover, she filled out her paperwork, and it was almost always on time.

She was a captain for almost two hundred years before the order came from the Royal Realm that she was getting a promotion.

When she heard, she simple nodded and gave her typical cocky smile. "At least these people will be stronger. Some more people to beat up," and had turned and left the room, long black hair falling behind her. Her long, beautiful black hair that, when she used it, had sent men into fits of desire. But she didn't care, and why should she?

It a week, she would be on her way.

~*~*~*~

The didn't make it in time, just as Orihime had thought. When they arrived, a full three hours later than what she would have desired, the stream of curses that came from her mouth was less than savory, and won her more than a few looks of surprise. Her guards weren't used to hearing such things from her, but that's not what was important/ They hadn't made it, just like she knew that they wouldn't. That meant that they had to wait for an entire day for the sun to rise again. She shouldn't have been surprised, and when she was honest with herself, she had expected not to make it. Still... a full day was more than a little bit of an inconvenience. It meant that Hiroshi and Ayako would have to buy them time for practically a full twenty four hours. It was a long time, enough to give her serious doubts.

But they didn't know where she had taken the others. That was comforting, if only a little—it meant that the five of them were safe for the time being. But she didn't try and fool herself. She knew that they wouldn't remain uncaught forever. And giving them a 24 hour window of secrecy was being generous.

They would just have to make it.

They were catching their breath, now. The morning light was in its strong, brisk phase now, the time when the air looked clear and the wind was swift and cold, an ironic notion, considering where they were.

After all, it was only just after sunrise—The Red Swamp was positively covered with fog, so there was no reason for the sky to be so clear, and yet it was. An odd phenomenon if ever there was one.

They decided to go and get some rest, as there was nothing else that they really could do but wait. Moving wouldn't do them any good unless they were moving away from something, which they weren't. The only thing left to do was to wait, and since none of them had gotten more than an hour or two of sleep since a long time before, that was the choice that they opted for, Orihime getting the first rest with Atara as Ichigo stood close watch and Chiyo and Musaru patrolling the general area, some two hundred yards away from Orihime, who was, once again, sitting on a branch, and Atara, who was asleep a couple of trees away. Ichigo was on top of Orihime's tree, looking around.

Orihime closed here eyes and leaned back, willing her body to go to sleep. She needed rest, it had boon more than twenty four hours since she had slept. But whenever she closed her eyes, she remembered the last time that she had slept here, the dream that she had had then, of him coming down from the stars and whispering to her, softly in her ear...

"You called?"

Orihime's eyes snapped open to see Ichigo standing in front of her. "What?"

"You called," he said.

"I did?"

"Yep."

"Oh." she looked down at her hands. "I must have been dreaming."

Ichigo laughed, and she looked at him in wonder. Not at why he was laughing, as he suspected was the cause, but because he was laughing above her, with the sun outlining his silhouette. It was positively staggering, how beautiful everything was at that moment. "Orihime, I know what happens when you dream. You say a lot more than just a single name or thing, you start reciting sound-affect dictionaries in reverse order. Come on."

She frowned in confusion. "I didn't remember calling you."

He smiled at her again. "Oh well, I'm here now, and you are apparently not sleeping. What's on your mind?"

Orihime truly had no desire to tell him what was on her mind, but she also knew what happened when she tried to lie. So she would tell the partial truth, it she decided. It was almost always the best way to escape such situations. "I was thinking about all of the times I've come here, and how much worse this time is in comparison." There, see? A perfectly crafted statement that was not a lie but was not completely honest, and allowed her to hide the truth and protect her dignity.

He nodded. "Yeah."

She sighed and looked away from him. He sensed the mood shift and came next to her and sat down. "What's wrong?"

Damn, another thing she couldn't tell him. "I'm just scared."

"That the King is dead?"

"What else?"

He nodded. "The King can't be dead, he's got to be tougher than that."

"Then how could it have happened? There's no other explanation."

"Well," he began, "There must be. We must just be unable to see it. It's why he's the king and we aren't." He took her hand. "You'll be alright, Inoue. I promised you I would protect you with my life, and I meant it. Even if the King is dead, you won't be injured. I'll make sure of it."

Orihime wasn't convinced, nor did she particularly care about her own health. "That's not the problem. The problem is the dinosaurs. If the King is dead, then..."

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to. He knew how it ended, what could happen, if the king was dead.

They couldn't allow it. He couldn't be allowed to die. If the King died, then...

Ichigo would end up dying.

That was the thought that terrified her, and she could not let that happen.

"Kurosaki kun," she found herself whispering into his shoulder that was next to her, "I'm so scared."

"It's okay," his voice said. "Rest on me for a while, we still have a long time before we'll know anything." and she felt his arms slowly close around her as she closed her eyes into his shoulder and fell asleep there.

And she dreamed.

Oh, did she dream.


	18. Memory

I know it's been a long time, but I have legitimate reasons. I wrote out more than half of the rest of the story—you know, so that I knew what was going to happen and all of that—and my computer, along with all of the files, decided to not function. In short, I'm writing this at the library, and then saving it as a draft in my email, and so on whenever I get either the time of the means of getting myself to the library. So if this sucks, which I'm fairly sure it does, I have a good reason. I mean, my comp fried. It's so dead, my dad took out the hard drive and let me rip apart what was left with a hammer.

It was really satisfying, kinda like blowing up a peep in the microwave.

Anyways, I wrote the whole thing at the library over the last week, and am just posting it from my sister's laptop, which I may or may not have stolen for a few minutes in order to post this. I feel really bad about how long this took. I'm sorry. But at least it's here now, and I hope you enjoy it.

And Happy Resurrection Day, I hope nobody is offended, but that's what I call Easter. There was a show of Constantine on TV earlier. What a movie to show on Easter, isn't it?

Ciao,

**Emmy**

Orihime had spent three months training for Bankai. Because her innate powers, her natural abilities, were so close to the abilities of her Zanpakuto, what her bankai could do made sense. She didn't like it, but it made sense.

She had power, oh, how she had power. And how she hated it.

"Why do you shun me, mistress? I am yourself, I am your power. Why should I be shunned in this way when I have done nothing? You wanted to work, to achieve bankai, and now you have. What have I done to deserve this treatment?"

And Kuchikukan was right, of course. She—the sword—had done nothing to deserve Orihime's cold treatment. All that Orihime had done was to beg for and scream for power, and when she had gotten that power, she had turned her back on what gave it to her. She was nothing but a coward, and how she hated herself for it. But there was no choice, she couldn't help how she was.

Perhaps she was good for nothing but destruction. Perhaps that was all that she, Orihime, was good for—pure and undiluted violence. Maybe it was the price that she paid for what she had done. Kuchikukan had to suffer through this, just like Orihime did. Orihime, or indeed, the two of them, were good for nothing but destruction. Their emotions were good for nothing, and useless.

But that didn't change how much it hurt to see that woman's face, the look of hurt in her eyes, as Orihime once again refused to accept her powers. As much as wielding those powers hurt Orihime, it was nothing like the hurt that she saw on Kuchikukan's face when Orihime tried to deny them.

"Why are you abandoning me, mistress?"

No, she wasn't abandoning her... No, Orihime knew she would never do that.

"Don't leave me, please, mistress."

What did she mean, leave? This made no sense.

"Where are you going?"

She tried to open her mouth to tell Kuchikukan that she wasn't going anywhere, but she couldn't. Forget making sounds, she couldn't even get her mouth open. What was happening? Orihime looked up, scared, to find herself falling towards the planet of her inner world. The planet... it was the Royal World, wasn't it?

She looked up again, she was still falling. Kuchikukan was there, trying to come down, but unable to leave the circle of her translucent globe, to get to the other side of her barrier...

"Mistress!"

And Orihime fell to Earth.

And woke with one hell of a start. She'd been dreaming, apparently, on Ichigo's arm.

Wait. Ichigo's...

Fuck. For several reasons.

Talk about impending disasters. First, she fell asleep on Ichigo. Then she went and had that dream—she'd had it before, but it had been more than a century, and she had been more than unprepared—and now there was the King, who may or may not be dead.

Fuck pretty much summed it up.

"What time is it?" She muttered, stretching out her legs on the massive bough in front of her that, not long ago, had held up her sleeping legs. She wanted to look at the sky, but she didn't have her awake-eyes yet. The light was too damned bright.

"It's past noon, Inoue Sama."

Ugh. Sama again. Plus she'd gotten a maximum of what, five hours? She fought back a sigh. It would have to do; there was no way that she was going to get anymore sleep in this condition.

Orihime stood up, ready to pretend to be ready for a new day. It was what she was good at, after all.

"Rotate the people who are resting," she called out. "Musaru, you've got to wait, I'm sorry, but I need three people awake at all times. Ichigo, you and Chiyo get some rest. Atara, you take close guard, Musaru and I can take patrol."

And so, Orihime was left to her own thoughts until nightfall.

Her thoughts were a dangerous place.

If it was true, and the king was dead... They would have a full scale war on their hands. Not just a riot, a war. A full out invasion of the palace. And if there was an invasion of the palace, not even the five Chief Caregiver's could fight off the army, not if it was the dinosaurs again. Not without the King. If the King was dead, and the Palace was attacked...

They would die. All of them.

Ichigo would die.

It all revolved around the King. He could not be dead. He must not be dead. If he was dead, everything would be lost, and her sacrifice, her efforts, would all have been for nothing.

No, he couldn't be dead. She wouldn't let him be dead, not if she could help it.

~*~*~*~

"Have we got a deal, then, Sato?"

"Kill the redhead? That's all you want?"

"He'll give you a good fight, of course. He's been here for a long time, and not for nothing, but yeah, kill the redhead. Leave the girl alone, just kill him. And the others, if you need to. Just not the girl."

"You know that's there's three girls involved in this, right? I'm a girl, and there's another in the camp with them."

"Well... leave the girl with the Haori."

"See, that makes more sense, now, doesn't it?"

"Shut up," he said, and he turned and walked away. Sato laughed. What an idiot, trying to make himself look cool. Whatever. She knew she could win a fight against these people, no problem. It was all good, and she would get to beat some people up as a bonus, not to mention a new friend.

Speaking of which... "Hey, you," Sato called out. "Blondie with a tight-assed hair-do, what's your name?"

He tuned around and smiled. "I'm sorry, Sato, but I can't tell you that." He drew his Zanpakuto, and Sato immediately drew hers—if it was to be a fight, then let it really be a fight, of course—but he just muttered something, turned back, and smiled before he flashed away.

Funny, Sato thought, but I can't remember his face.

In fact, and she was really puzzled now, I can't even remember his voice.

But then, wait... who was this "he" that she was thinking about? She couldn't even remember that.

Huh. That's weird.

But she smiled. She had a mission in life now, to kill the redhead kid and leave the haori girl alive. At least now she had something to do. It was better than being bored, after all.

Too bad she couldn't remember even hearing the name of the guy she was going after. She would have enjoyed yelling out and having him come to her. She hated hunting.

She couldn't stand toying with prey. It always tasted better in one gulp.


	19. Ready

I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. It took forever, as you can tell (my comp was out of commission until earlier today), but it was hella fun to write. I was going to make this longer, but it's been like three weeks since I got you guys an update, so I felt like I was obligated to get this out. At least its longer than the last four chapters or something like that.

My recent obsession: Dr. Who, the BBC show about the Time Lord of Gallifrey. Totally worth watching, if you get the time. Especially the ones with David Tennant, he's the best.

**Emmy**

Mistress is out in the woods again!

Few things ever made Akiko so happy as that singular thought always did. Mistress rarely had the time to leave the walls of the palace, so it was always a real treat when she did come out. Of course, Akiko knew that, under normal circumstances, Mistress would still be in the palace, and that it was Akiko's own fault that Mistress was so far away from her home at a time like this. The very thought made Akiko's heart fall. Maybe she had displeased Mistress. The very idea made her stomach clench, her heart skip a beat.

But she musn't make Mistress worry, now. No, Akiko had to protect Mistress. That was her job, and making mistress worry and dying would not make that happen, it would only leave Akiko unusable to Mistress. Akiko would never be able to live with herself if she wasn't of any use to her Mistress.

She had to stay alive, then, and protect her Mistress. Mistress, who was out in the woods again! She would go to see Mistress. Maybe she could use the company. But maybe, Akiko thought, maybe I'm too bold, I talk to her too much. Maybe she's tired of me, maybe I shouldn't go and see her. Akiko stopped and perched on a branch.

But Mistress told me she was glad that I told her about being kicked out, Akiko reasoned. Mistress isn't so mean a person as to turn someone away.

I'll go to Mistress, Akiko decided. Mistress is always so nice to me, she'll be happy to see me, and I'l protect her some more.

And Akiko went on her merry way, too happy with life to notice the shadow behind her.

~*~*~*~

Musaru was a smart man, and had been alive—alive, dead, whatever—a long time, far longer than many people in this place. Or any place, for that matter. He was a gentle man, as well, gentler than most. He was good with people, a talent that many warriors lacked.

But despite his talent with people, Musaru didn't have many friends, and there were few people that he considered to be in that category in relation to him. Those who he did place there, however, he thought very highly of, as, in truth, there were only three.

Orihime and Ichigo were two people who he considered to be his friends. For one thing, they were similar to him, which is to say that they were not suited for fighting. Both were extremely skilled—Orihime was a Chief Caregiver, after all, and Ichigo had achieved Bankai in three days—Neither had the right soul to fight. Given the choice, the two of them would happily spend all of their time reading or sitting quietly in complete solitude, or perhaps in the company of the other. Conflict was not a part of their natural state. They were like him in that way: They fought out of necessity, for a reason.

It was a surprisingly rare thing, actually. Very few people in this place, the land of the violent and talented, disliked fighting. Most were good at battle, and that's why they liked it. Orihime ad Ichigo, though, were rare the form of dislike. They were good at fighting, but that had no love of it. They werr stong because seeing others hurt pained them, and they wanted it to stop. It was why Musaru liked the two of them so much: They were good people, a rare thing in these parts. They, like him, didn't deserve to be here. And they, like him, were stuck.

What could he say? Misery loves company, after all.

It was sad, then, that the two of them were in love. It was sad that the two of them were in this place where they had no choice but to be violent, to fight. They were stuck in an eternity that went against their natures. They were in what was the equivalent of their own personal hell, an eternity of pain. They could see the one they loved, but never touch. They couldn't have their cake and eat it too.

Well, that wasn't true, per se. There was no law saying that they had to be apart, saying that they couldn't have each other. But Orihime was a woman of position, a strong woman. To her, the idea of giving most of her attention to something besides her duty was unforgivable. She was determined not to let people down, convinced that her own happiness was less important than the survival of the King, the guard, the Zero squad. And, in all honesty, she was probably right. Everything was more important than any one person. He, Musaru, didn't like it, but it was the truth that Orihime had recognized and decided to uphold. Yes, Orihime was brave and honorable, a traditional woman at heart. One who shouldn't be anywhere near where she was.

And then there was Ichigo, the boy wonder, as Musaru thought of him. He was a perfect match for Orihime. They were both gentle, strong, kind, and stubborn. They both prioritized the world above themselves. Ichigo, in particular, held Orihime on a pedestal, never to be let within a mile of the ground. That's not to say he worshiped her—he didn't—but he was determined to keep her away from anything below, anything that could harm her. She was his first priority. He was lucky that way, that his job allowed him to do what he would have done anyways. In that way, he was blessed. He could do what he loved; he could protect her. It was his duty, just as it was Musaru's. But he loved her more than Musaru did, and she loved him more as well. He was the one, of the three of them, who should die. They could live without him, but not without each other.

These were the thoughts that directed Musaru's actions. He saw the blow, he knew what was coming, and he knew that he had to stop it. He had a responsibility. Less substantial than hers, perhaps, but no less important. He was to protect her, and protect her he would do.

Hence, it was Musaru who, by his own decision, took the hit intended for Orihime Inoue.

~*~*~*~

It took Orihime less than a second to realize that something was wrong. She could feel the presence of her guards, and was constantly on the look out to make sure that they were alright. She knew, for one, that Musaru was close behind her when he took the hit, which was how she got to him as quickly as she did. It only took three vaults through branches and she found him, clearly injured and unconscious on the ground below, maybe dead. Oh, God, how she hoped he wasn't dead, not like this. She immediately started to heal him, though she didn't know what she could do. She didn't even know what had happened to him.

She still wasn't sure he was still alive when she next looked up, and not a moment too soon. A foot was coming down from above, a foot that gave the impression of being able to pack a serious amount of hurt into a single blow. It was fast, as well, faster and too close for Orihime to have the time to fully react to. Rather than responding with her sword as she would have preferred, she didn't have time to draw it and was forced to use her arm to stop the blow.

It wasn't such a bad hit, Orihime thought as she flipped away through the air to land upright on a slightly higher branch. She glanced around and quickly found her enemy. It was a woman, Orihime noticed. A woman with a black Shihakusho and even blacker hair that went to her waist. The new recruit, Orihime concluded. But the new recruit shouldn't even be here yet. What was that all about? And even if she was here early, why would she be attacking at random?

"Hello," Orihime called. "Who are you, and why are you attacking us?"

"Kenpachi Sato," the woman replied.

Fuck. "Kenpachi?"

"Yes."

That would explain the murderous intent on first sight. Kenpachis were never good news. "Are you the new recruit, then?"

"yeah, that's me."

"Can I take you back to the palace, then, and make sure you get taken care of?"

"No, I don't think so."

Orihime had to fight to keep her eyebrows down. So there was another reason. "Why not?"

"I feel this incredible urge to fight and kill you."

It was with extreme difficulty that Orihime kept her eyes from rolling. It was such a Kenpachi concept. "But you want to do that to everybody, don't you?"

"No, not usually. I think it's just you. Maybe it's your hair, I feel like I should be killing people with red and orange hair."

Orange. Ichigo. Kill. Bad.

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that. I rather value my life right now, thanks."

"Well," the woman replied, "I can't let you go for some reason. I feel like I must kill you."

And there it was, an ultimatum. Fight or die. And while Orihime despised fighting, dying right now was simply not an option.

"Hand to hand," Orihime called, "Or weapon to weapon?"

"Whatever you're best at," The woman called back. "I want to beat you at your best."

Orihime nodded. "Very well," she sighed, and drew her sword. She quietly called its name, and there she appeared, with ten links on the fiery chain. Two each for Kenpachi, Ichigo, Chiyo, Atara, and... Musaru! He was alive, then. Oh, thank goodness. He was alive.

Orihime could fight without holding anything back, without worrying about whether her subordinate was alive. She could go full out. Well, not really, but... she could use shikai form, though she would not use the power. No, it would take a lot more than some Kenpachi to make her use that power, let alone to drive her into Bankai.

Orihime was ready, so ready. Her Haori was on a branch behind her, all but forgotten. So too was her Kimono, both layers. She was wearing nothing but her Hakama and Stabilizer.

She was ready.


	20. Forgotten

So, basically, it's really hard to get myself to write when nobody reviews. It's not that I don't try or anything, and I don't have a minimum number of reviews before I'll put up a new chapter, because I really like writing, and this story is fun, but it's really discouraging to spend any number of hours writing and then get nothing for it. Authors aren't lying when they say that reviews make their day. The two reviews that I got for last chapter were awesome, I'm not selling them short. But I also look at the number of people who read each chapter, and I know a lot more people are reading than reviewing. Come on, guys. Take the time, make the effort. I spend five hours, you spend thirty seconds. Reviews aren't that hard to write, I swear.

This chapter has gone through three re-writes, so this is attempt number four. Hope you like it,

**Emmy**

It was a very, very good dream.

She was naked under him, blushing, modestly trying to cover what could not be covered.

She was beautiful.

She was wanton as well, he knew. Her blush, the way that her thighs were rubbing together slightly, the sheen of sweat that covered her body, the way her eyes wouldn't quite open all the way when she tried to look at him. It was plain as day that she wanted him, she wanted this.

He became aware of his own nakedness, but found that he was not the least bit embarrassed by it, not even by his own state of desire. He would have wondered at that if he had not been so distracted by... well, everything. He knew nothing but what his instinct told him, he had no thoughts in his head but to take _that_, to claim _that_, to abuse _that_, to feel _that_.

He grabbed her arms and tore them away from her body and onto the surface beneath her, trapping them under his hands, forcing the exposure of her body, stopping her from hiding. She gave a little squeak, but he didn't register it—there were more important things, like getting her to stop protesting, or to at least stop her from pretending she didn't like it. As if he didn't know better.

He bent down and licked her nipple, a stroke that was short but solid. She twitched, a ripple seeming to go down her back. Hah. She liked it alright. He felt himself grin and did it again, this time winning a shiver and an intake of breath.

He kissed down her stomach, and reached down with his hands, one on each of her thighs, reaching around the outside so that his fingers were just barely unable to reach her, there. She bucked her hips and let out a low growl, a whine of lust. He could feel her becoming bigger, somehow. Not her body, her spirit, rising, rising, rising, becoming bigger and fuller and rougher. Wilder. Something he wanted to see. He opened his eyes—he hadn't noticed when they drifted closed on their own accord, as sight was not as important as touch anymore—to see nothing in front of him.

Not nothing, of course. Just not what he would have preferred. He found himself sighing—he should have known.

She wasn't there, of course. It had been a dream. A good dream, of course, but still just a dream. Ichigo ran his fingers through his hair. A good dream, but an awful way to start the morning. Here he was, sitting around all hot and bothered, and she was going to be by any minute, and he was going to have to hide his...problem yet again. He let his back slump and his head fall into his hands as he yawned. He reached out to feel where she was—he at least wanted to know how long he had.

He found her quickly, too quickly. He spiritual pressure was up, which meant that he hadn't been imagining that part of the dream. If Her pressure was up, though, that meant that...

No. no, no, no, no, no. No, she was not. She couldn't be. She musn't be fighting, no, no, she couldn't, he wouldn't let her. Damn it!

He leapt to his feet and began running to where he knew her to be, going into Bankai as he moved. The Royal Realm was no place for child play, especially not in fights, and if Orihime was fighting, everyone else must have been put out of commission already.

She had better be okay, he thought. He didn't know what he would do if something happened to her.

He found Musaru first, wounded on the ground. There was a bubble around him, which meant that Inoue was healing him. At least he was alive, even if he was unconscious at the moment. He could wait, though. Orihime was fighting.

He continued, flashing up to the fight to see Orihime, released, in only her stabilizer, her hair unbraided, something he hadn't seen for a long time. She was preparing for Bankai. She never went into Bankai. In the last several hundred years, he had seen it a grand total of twice. It was terrible to see; her power was extraordinary, but he hated that she needed that power.

At the same time, though, there was something amazing about seeing her in a fury like that. When Inoue was angry—truly angry—the was nothing more entrancing.

He yanked his eyes away from Inoue and looked instead at who she was fighting. It took him a moment to focus on the two of them, they were moving quite quickly. Inoue was very fast, despite her refusal to flash step. He'd never figured out what exactly was her aversion to it, but that didn't matter. Once his eyes could follow, he took a closer look at Inoue's opponent.

It was a woman with long black hair. That made him pause. Surely it wasn't... But then he saw the style, how the woman fought with her body rather than her sword, and how there was no sword, only a set of bladed brass knuckles, and he knew. It was her. His heart fell, and he almost stopped moving. He would rather it be anyone but her. But... between anyone and Inoue, Inoue was first. Even when the other person was Sato.

He leapt between them, blocking Kenpachi's punch. Inoue stopped her swing before it hit Ichigo, and all at once, everything was still.

"Orihime," he began, "please back away and allow me to deal with this."

There was a moment of silence. Nobody moved, nobody even seemed to breathe.

"No, that's alright, Ichigo," She said after a few extremely tense moments of nothing, "This woman and I have something we need to hash out."

"Please, Orihime-Sama, if you kill this woman, you will come to regret it."

She looked at him for the first time since his interruption. "And why is that?"

Shit. He'd forgotten that she didn't know, and frankly, it wasn't his secret to tell.

"Lives are never easy to take, and you should not have any more blood on your hands than you already do. Allow me to do that for you." He paused. He would have rather that Sato wasn't hearing this conversation. He continued, in a lower tone, "Let me protect you."

She looked at the ground, allowing her sword to drop. She seemed to be calming down. "I'm sorry, Kurosaki-san," she said after a few moments of consideration "But I cannot allow you to do that. This is, as I said, between me and this woman." And so saying, she looked back up from the ground and raised her sword yet again until the point was at her own eye level. "Now move, Kurosaki," she said. "I will not lose this fight."

He wouldn't be able to stop her. Damn. She would find out, eventually. Long hair can only disguise so much, especially in close combat like the two of them were. She would find out about Sato.

And there was nothing he could do to protect her. He grimaced and backed away as the fight restarted.

It was a furious match. Sato, an expert in martial arts, who leapt around, flashing through the air to land a punch somewhere, only to be deflected by Inoue's fluid, sweeping movements. There were injuries, of course. Inoue had a slice across her cheek, and another going through her side, that one a punch rather than a graze, like her cheek.

Sato, too, had some injuries. She had been forced to rip off the bottom half of one of the legs of her hakama as Orihime's sword had sliced into her thigh, making the fabric nothing more than a drag. The leg that was revealed showed one of this things that Ichigo was the most scared of. The scar that went up the back of her leg, from the middle of her calf all the way up to her back, though you couldn't tell with the hakama in the way. He desperately wanted to turn away, but found that he couldn't. He had to be here, for Inoue.

They were yelling taunts at each other as they fought. Sato was talking about how pathetic a fighter Kurosaki must be if she wouldn't let him fight and she was only doing this well, and how unlucky it was that she would have to fight people who were so weak, and how she thought the people here would be ore worthy of her time. She was hardly even sweating, she boasted, and that was only because she was bored.

Orihime replied that she wasn't even remotely sweating, so clearly, there must be something wrong with Kenpachi. There was simply no way that the captain of the eleventh squad, no matter how powerful, could stand a chance against a Chief Caregiver. And attempt was futile, Inoue said, her face cold and emotionless. Her voice, too, was devoid of any gentleness it usually possessed. Just what had Sato done to deserve this? It took a lot to rile Inoue, let alone to this extent. He had never seen her so furious, and she wasn't even at bankai yet. He had rarely been that mad, and when he had, it had always been...

That was it, he thought. Sato had threatened him. Nothing else than he knew of would make her so angry.

But he couldn't allow her to fight his battle for him. Just as he was preparing to leap between them again, though, the fight ahead of him took a vital turn. The two women had broken apart for a quick breath, and Orihime, as she wiped her hand across her arm to check if her latest cut was still bleeding, looked up at her opponent. "You seem familiar to me, Kenpachi." she practically spat out the woman's name, "But I don't know why, or where from. What do you have against my subordinate?"

"I don't really know," she responded, breathing heavily. "I truth, I feel like I shouldn't be fighting you. The one I really want to hurt is the guy over there. I dunno why, I just have this urge to kill him. And you... I have no desire to hurt you at all. I think I'm doing something wrong, fighting you, but..."

Ichigo's blood ran cold. She couldn't remember. Surely, she wouldn't remember.

Remember.

Sato couldn't remember. She had a hatred for him, but she couldn't remember why. She hadn't hated him before he left Soul society, though, which meant that it must have appeared since then. And what would have caused that to happen, especially if she couldn't remember why?

There were two possibilities. One, she had begun to remember everything. Everything, as in, before she died. And two, she could have been manipulated by someone who had something against him, and then made to forget the manipulation process, which was the more likely of the two, because there was someone with a vendetta against him, someone who could manipulate her and make her forget.

He understood. For the first time in a long time, he understood what was happening.

And there was little to nothing he could do to stop it, at least not now. Things were in motion, things that couldn't be stopped.

The fight continued above him, and Ichigo turned to watch. His musings would have to wait until the fight was over.

The women were really working now. They were solidly in the air, never coming close to touching the ground, too engaged in the fight to stop, to angry. The fight, though, was at something of a stalemate, as neither one was really doing serious damage. It was going nowhere.

Just as Ichigo thought that, though, he was proven wrong. As Orihime took a swing at Sato's stomach, Sato leapt into the air in a dodge, flipping away, though not completely avoiding damage. The swing of Kuchikukan sliced though the woman's long, black hair, cutting very close to her head, but ultimately missing the flesh. Feet of hair fell to the ground below as Sato recovered to an upright position. Her hair, the hair that had made men go wild for her, was now all but gone. It no longer fell like a sheet to hide her face, to prevent recognition.

Ichigo knew what it meant. He knew what was now inevitable. He just didn't like it.

He felt, even though the distance, Orihime's gasp. He knew that she saw, understood, what was happening. She had finally seen the truth, one of the truths he had been keeping from her for a long time.

Tatsuki had died, that day when the sky had collapsed. But her soul? Orihime had never asked, and Ichigo had never told.

Tatsuki had forgotten, forgotten everything. Even her best friend.


	21. Anger

I'm thinking about putting up a companion story to this one, something about the years that are missing. There are a lot of Ichihime moments that happen in this story's universe and timeline that I wont be able to work into this particular plot, so I was thinking about putting up another to show them to you, along with other things, like what happened to everyone else in the series, the various relationships between my original characters, and so on. Any thoughts?

To "The Snow Lady," your review was by far my favorite, thank you very much. I suppose I'll just have to stop whining and get back to writing now, won't I?

I like this chapter, I've been waiting to write it since around when I started this story. I think you'll see why. One warning, though: My Japanese is based on my little knowledge of their grammar and an online translator, so the words that I use may or may not be accurate. It's not intentional, I just don't know Japanese.

**Emmy**

Sato, of course, was Tatsuki.

She should have known. All of the signs were there—black hair, her fighting style, even the Zanpakuto release made it obvious. She'd never found out what had happened to Tatsuki, had never been able to bring herself to ask. She hadn't wanted to know. But now she did know, at least some of what had happened. She knew what Tatsuki had become, and that could well have been enough.

Sato stood there, recovered from her turn, rubbing at the back of her neck, apparently annoyed by the lack of hair to cover yet another scar on her back.

Tatsuki wasn't Tatsuki anymore, and that one thought, that concept, nearly drove Orihime to her knees. But she didn't let herself fall. She couldn't allow herself to be weak. She couldn't.

Never again. Not in front of him.

She knew she had to top herself before she became weak. She would be strong, as she had been strong for centuries now. She would not relax, would not let her emotions show. Well, not except for one.

Anger was a wonderful tool. Extremely dangerous, especially in capable hands, but to Orihime, it was nothing but a tool. A tool that she needed, one that she never put to use. It was a last resort, a trump card in her arsenal. She had it, but never let it flow, never exposed it to the light. She knew the horrors of anger, but she also knew when she had no choice. Now, she had to stay standing, and nothing else would allow her to do that but the release.

"Do you know, Tatsuki," she began, "who I am?"

"If you're talking to me, my name isn't Tatsuki, it's Kenpchi. I know your name is Inoue Orihime, but nothing beyond that. I don't really care, I just want to kill the redhead."

"You may not do that," Orihime said, rather sharply for her. "Rather, I find myself forced to a place where I will have to destroy you."

No. no, surely she wasn't going to...

"INOUE!" he took off running. She couldn't do that, not to Tatsuki, not to her old friend. He could not, would not allow her to do that. He refused the possibility. There was no way, not in his defense. She would not fight his battles for him, he thought as he jumped between the two of them. "Inoue sama, I'm begging you, allow me to do this. I don't want you do have to go through that, not now, not for..." he didn't know what to call her. "This woman."

She barely glanced at him. "Kurosaki," she stated, "the are two things you can do right now. One, you can back away from this fight. I will not allow her to do this, not to anyone." _not to you._ "Or two, you could refuse, and I would be forced to cofine you. Don't think that I couldn't, Kurosaki, you know better than that. Choose, and quickly."

"Please, Inoue, please," he was practically begging her. "Please, think this over. You're angry, so you cant see it, but you'll regret this. You need to be rationable. Please, Inoue, you'll regret it."

She looked at him this time, and straight in the eye for the first time since she had fallen asleep on his shoulder. Had that really been less than twelve hours ago? It felt like months, and he was an old man. Time did not pass him idily.

"Kurosaki," she said, "Have no fear, I am not so weak as I used to be. I will not fall or waver, don't worry." And she smiled.

She hadn't heard him at all. He had seen that when she looked at him, how here eyes were blazing already. She was too far gone.

He was right, of course. Somewhere in the back of her head, she knew that he was right, and that sometime in the not-too-distant future she would regret destroying her friend. But he was more important. Everyone else had left her. Anyone else would have been terrified of her. Anyone else would have given up on her. They all had; even Tatsuki had forgotten her, forgotten her best friend. There was nothing left but him. Nothing left for her but to protect him, which meant that she had to do it.

And so she did not fall. She did not waver. She did not relax, not even a single muscle. She stood in complete stillness, her sword still raised, and released the monster.

Her bankai was truly magnificent. Horrible, terrible, for sure, but magnificent, beautiful in a way that only those who understand both true power and excruciating agony can appreciate.

Her stabilizer had been designed for her Bankai. It was made out of metal that wrapped around her back and over her breasts, keeping them restrained in comfort, while keeping her stomach and lower back completely bare. The stabilized was designed to keep her bosom still and allow her Bankai to function as it must, with rest of her body. The metal was necessary because there couldn't be any cloth on her shoulders or in the area between her breasts, and Orihime, no matter how much she had changed, still practiced as much modesty as possible. She hated how the anger took her, but it was necessary.

The anger appeared long before she moved. A reddish aura surrounded her, radiating out, seeping into the world around her. The aura hurt to those who felt it. Not because it was anger, because it wasn't. No, it was pain. Desperate, agonizing, never-ending torment.

The aura was what she felt.

But her powers didn't stop there, that was nothing but preparation. She finally moved, letting go of her sword and allowing it to all but vanish into thin air. He stood straight, her arms lifted as though she was being nailed to a cross. She was floating, surrounded by red, her clothing, the parts that remained, were shredded. She seemed calm, though, and besides her change in position, she hadn't moved a muscle. The aura got stronger, and brighter, and somehow tangible, the air thick as though it could be cut with a knife. And then it stopped growing, and everything seemed to become silent.

She opened her eyes and looked everywhere and nowhere. And her mouth opened, and she spoke in a cold, brutal voice that was nothing like what Ichigo knew her to be:

"Bankai."

Ichigo fought to keep himself upright against the onslaught of her spirit. The emotional anguish of the aura alone weakened him significantly, and the force that came after was like a hurricane, driving him and anyone else away from its center. But Ichigo knew what was happening, knew that this would end soon enough. And he was right, as, after a few moments, the force dies down, and aura seemed to fade some, the torment alleviate. When he could keep himself steady again, he ran forward to see what was happening, though he knew what it was.

She was there, surrounded by her Bankai, still in the air, as if she hadn't noticed the destruction, But Ichigo knew better. He had seen this before, he had felt the touch of her power. He knew the agony she was in, what this costed her.

Chains surrounded her now. They had appeared one at a time, starting around her stomach, connecting together in a slowly growing clinking mass that crawled around her body, slowly encompassing her stomach and back, crawling in an X shape between her breasts to wrap around her shoulders, neck, and arms. The links were orange, glowing, molten, like the chains than usually flowed from her fist as she fought with a sword. And like the chains that were usually coming out of her sword, they burned and burned badly, though they were touching only one person.

Orihime was burning, surrounded by a never ending blanket of scalding metal, hundreds of links, different sizes. Each link was a soul, one that she had taken. Each soul she destroyed came back to hurt her, and that pain was her power. She could weild it, strike her enemies down with the pain that she felt, the pain that all her victims had felt combined.

"Enman no Hakaisha," Orihime stated. Destroyer of Peace.

For a moment, everyone and everything was still. And then...

she started rotating. Not spinning, as if she was trying to twirl, her body itself carried no momentum. Rather it was as if she was on a platforn that was moving her as she stood still, despite the fact that she was still hovering in midair. Her eyes were open now, but somehow unseeing, and as her speed picked up, they became blurred along with the rest of her. She was a tornado now, her hakama smearing to white on the bottom, her hair flying out, blending with the burning color of the chains around her, her arms outstretched, her eyes and mouth open, though her gaping expression couldn't really be seen through the speed of her movements.

Ichigo could see it. Perhaps it was because he knew what to look for, perhaps it was because of how atuned to her he was, but he could see everything. He could feel everything. He knew what was happening, what would go down.

He knew that Tatsuki was going to be destroyed, and there was nothing he could really do to stop it.

Orihime's Bankai was designed to hurt her. The chains that wrapped around her were symbolic, a link for every soul she had ever destroyed, no matter how weak or strong. Each soul was stuck in her world, and each soul caused her pain. But in that way, each soul was also her weapon. Each soul, each bit of pain, gave her strength. After all, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. With Orihime, each soul was a little bit of strain, and every strain became her weapon, like a string of sinew, building her up more and more, making her faster, stronger, tougher.

She was, in essence, a time bomb. She had a limit to how much she would take. One day there would be a soul, one that weighed on her too much, one that she simply wouldn't be able to take, and she would buckle, maybe die. She knew that she would die one day, for having taken too many souls, for not being able to bear the pain of it. She understood. She accepted.

Bankai was painful for Orihime, both physically and emotionally. She didn't use it if she could avoid it, for two reasons: One, she was plenty good in shikai, and without any release, for that matter. And two, her Bankai was painful enough to kill her if she couldn't protect herself somehow. She could not use it if she had no form of protection.

If she used her Bankai while she was calm, she would die.

She had to be angry, very, very angry for her Bankai to work. She had to have protection, something to sheild her mind from the anguish of the souls she had destroyed. Physical pain, after all, can be ignored. The body can be forced past limits. The mind is the problem, the weak link, so to speak, and therefore the thing that needed to be protected the most. The mind, though, is a hard thing to protect. Thoughts change to frequently, as the mind is always racing to think of new things, especially in the midsts of a battle. But in battle, emotion is constant, and strong emotions are what allow for nonstop strength. Therefor, to protect the mind, emotion is necessary. Sadness, though, a common emotion for her while in battle, was weak, and led to weakness. What she needed was an emotion that she didn't often feel strongly that she could use in battle.

The first time she used Bankai, she had been fighting Atara. She had beaten him to within an inch of his life, destroyed him. She'd only had four links then, so she hadn't needed a sheild, but the sight of what she had done to him was enough to make her collapse. She had taken three months to recover, a full two of them just to wake up. It had been awful. The pain was designed to kill her for destroying. It was a hypocritical thing, to tell her that she had to do worse than destroy, and then to be punished for it.

But in the end, it couldn't be helped. She'd needed to be able to utilized bankai, so she'd learned. Now she knew.

And it was at that very moment, when Orihime was reflecting on what she was doing and why that the other woman chose to attack.


	22. Belief

Hey, guys.

So, first, I know it's been fucking forever. And I know that because all of the time I was gone, I had no computer. After I posted the last chapter, I had about two days before I went out of town, and guess whose dad didn't let her take the laptop? Do you know how long it takes to sort through three weeks of email? Anyways, the reason I didn't get this chapter out before I left is because I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do with the battle. It's not as intense as I was going to make it, for which I am sorry. I tried, but... meh. Anyways, I hadn't decided the outcome of the fight between Orihime and Tatsuki yet. It was a massive fork in the road, so to speak. There were two ways the story could have gone, and it hinged on the outcome of this battle. It's why I didn't have the end of the fight in the last chapter; I hadn't figured it all out yet. And I probably still haven't—I'm liable to change my own plot halfway through, which I've already done more than enough times with this story.

Anyways, I got a good three weeks sans computer to think about my story, so here it is again! Yay. It is a little short this time, but at least it's something. Finally. Sorry for the wait, I'll get better, I swear. I would swear on my mother's grave or something, but everybody who I could really do that with is still alive. That makes it so much less legitimate sounding.

Ciao,

**Emmy**

She never stood a chance. Not even close. It took less than a tenth of a second for Orihime to cut her down. The scream was unbearable. It was sad. Hundreds of years worth of training and fighting at the level of bankai, and a Kenpachi was destroyed by the very first attack of an opponents bankai. It was almost tragic.

Ichigo tried to look away at the moment that it happened, but he couldn't. He saw every gory detail of the chain that swept across Kenpachi's face, how it seared her skin and made the very cells evaporate at its heat before sweeping away to leave her, falling to the ground, nothing but a shell of what she had been only moments before. He saw the chain that wrapped around Orihime, watched as a new link began to form, at the end that had only moments before stuck at Orihime's enemy. All in less than a few seconds.

From then on was a bit of a blur to Ichigo. He remembered a scream, and Orihime falling out of the air. He knew that he caught her, because he remembered how rigid she had felt in his arms, how much she seemed to be in pain. He remembered wondering why his soul hadn't been destroyed, if he was touching her and she was in bankai. And he was dimly aware of Tatsuki, hair as short as it ever had been, walking over to the pair of them as they huddled on the ground. She had knelt down and crawled on her hands and knees up to Ichigo.

"Mistress," she had said, "Mistress, how can I please you?"

It took Orihime some time to come out of her trance. Her Bankai did that—it made her comatose, even after the violence was over. The rage was something that should not be a part of her. It made her sick, it literally poisoned her. Her body would stiffen as she fought off the infection. This time, it took her some twenty minutes, during which time the entire guard made it over to where they were on the ground.

"How is she," was the first thing that all of them asked when they approached. "She'll be fine eventually," was his reply to each of them.

When she woke, she was dazed, confused. When she realized where she was, she politely excused herself from Ichigo's arms. She stood up and looked around, apparently ignoring Tatsuki on the ground. "What happened?"

"You went into Bankai against Kenpachi, Inoue Sama."

She gave Chiyo a look of slight confusion that changed into realization and remembrance. "Yes, of course. I won that fight, I presume?"

"Of course, Inoue Sama."

"Ah. Thank you." she looked up into the sky for a few moments before looking down at her own state of dress. She sighed. It couldn't be helped. She looked back at her guards. "Well, back to business, I suppose. You should get some rest, I've just had mine." They tried to protest, but she shushed them. "Honestly, I was laying there like a potato, I'm well rested enough. You all need to get back to full strength, so rest up." They nodded and began to walk off, though Ichigo lingered as Orihime went to talk to Kenpachi.

"Why were you tying to kill me?"

"I don't remember, mistress. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please, let me kill myself for my transgression against you, So that it will never happen again. I'm so sorry, mistress, I'm so sorry." She was practically sobbing, tears were coming from her eyes as she groveled pitifully at Orihime's feet.

"No, that's unnecessary, Sato. Thank you, but I do not wish you to die twice in one day. Go get some rest." Sato nodded and ran off after the members of the guard, on her way to follow orders. Orihime was left standing in the woods, her back straight, her chin held high.

"Inoue, you can stop now."

She turned around quickly, as if she was surprised. Ichigo knew better—she had now perfectly well that he had been standing there, waiting for her to finish. "Stop what, exactly, Ichigo?"

"Acting like you didn't just kill your best friend."

She looked at him. "What do you mean by that, Ichigo?

"You know what I mean. You know perfectly well who Sato was, you remember your life. Don't play me for a fool. I know you're upset. She was your best friend."

She stepped toward him, furious. "That woman was not my best friend. My best friend was not a Kenpachi, nor would she ever hurt me. She would have died to protect me, and I her."

"So you're not upset by what you did? Not at all?"

"No, I'm not upset. Why should I be? She tried to kill me, I was acting in defense."

"Bullshit. I told you, I'm not an idiot. You can't handle this, you can't stand what you did. You're in pain from it. You can't stand yourself, can you?"

She was leaning against a tree trunk. "Please, Kurosaki."

But he wouldn't stop. "Why won't you tell me what's wrong? Don't lie to me, I know you better than that. I've known you longer than anyone. I've sacrificed more for you than anyone, and you won't even be honest with me. You won't even be honest with yourself. You can't handle everything, Inoue. Nobody can."

"Don't ever say that, Kurosaki. Never say that I can't do what I have to."

"Oh, I know you can do what you have to, what's in question is whether or not you can live with yourself afterwards, which brings us to my point: Why didn't you let me fight?"

She almost sniffed. "You are my subordinate, it is my job to ensure your safety. I wasn't confident that you would have been able to win the fight, so I took aproprie-"

"Stop lying to me!" suddenly he was over her, sandwiching her to the tree. His hands were to either side of her head, resting against the tree. His breath was mingling with hers, and she could feel his body heat as it contrast to her bare skin that was subject to the passing breezes. Their gazes matched, brown and grey. "I could have won that fight easily, you know that. And I wouldn't have felt as bad about killing her as you do now. So why did you tell me not to?"

She looked down, away from his eyes. "What would you have done?"

He wasn't silent for long, though when he spoke, his voice was much gentler. "I would have used my head, and come to the right conclusion. I was better for that fight, and you can't live with this one. Her death will stay with you, and you won't let yourself let go of it."

She looked back up at him. "Would you have been able to let go?"

"Better than you would have been able to, for sure."

She nodded some, her eyes blinking to try and hold back the tears. It didn't work, and they streamed down her cheeks. "Yes, I suppose you would," she said, her voice shaking, barely containing her emotion.

She didn't know who moved first, but one second she was doing her best to keep it together, and the next she was a sobbing, hysterical mess, crying into his shoulder as he held her to him, rocking gently side to side, rubbing her back, her head tucked beneath his chin. "It's okay, Inoue," he said, over and over again, the mantra that kept her sanity intact. "It's okay, Inoue. It'll all be okay. I'm here, it'll be fine, everything will be fine."

And for a while, she actually believed him.


	23. Palace

So, I've been re-reading this story some, and let me just say that I am sorry that it's such crap. At some point, I promise I'm going to edit it and make it better. I swear, it will get done. And I'm sorry to say that my story is starting to be inconsistent with itself. It's small things that I'm pretty sure none of you notice, but any inconsistencies that you happen to see are me changing what I said earlier. Kubo Tite does the same thing.

Also, I finally did something I've always wanted to do: I inserted a character who is entirely based off of me. You know how they say authors put themselves into their work? I put in a character who thinks entirely the way that I think, and acts entirely the way that I would act under the circumstances.

**PLEASE READ THIS**: There is some graphic, less-than-strictly-friendly sex in this chapter. If you don't like it, don't read it. I tamed it down some, but not a whole lot, so... be warned. There'll be a recap at the bottom of this chapter, I'll have it shown in bold so you can skip down to it if you want.

Also, a quick question—does anyone wanna beta for me?

**Emmy**

"Please, forgive me!"

He slapped her behind, and she cried out. He groaned—it was excellent, almost as good as the real thing could be. He pulled out slowly, and she let out a whine of dissatisfaction.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. What did you say, bitch?" he reached forward with his left hand and grabbed her hair, yanking her head back. She let out a gasp.

"I said I'm sorry, please forgive me! I never meant to betray you, I'm sorry!" He slapped her again, on the other cheek—a bruise would be unsightly—and leered at her, jerking back in, winning a scream of pleasure, or maybe pain. It was all the same to her, though. No distinction was necessary.

He thrust into her a few times, letting her have some relief as her screams became whines of pleasure that permeated the air every time her came to a halt inside her. He loved doing this, he loved how much she wanted him to do this. She always pretended she didn't like it when he took her like this, hard, fast, violently on the floor. But he knew better. She was a woman, which meant that he could do anything to her, and as long as she got off, he was golden.

It's all that women cared about, after all. They weren't good for anything but their body.

His hand on her hair had relaxed some, and her head was now bent forward to the ground, between her elbows in an attempt to keep herself up on her own. Well, that wouldn't do. He reached forward, with both hands this time, and grabbed her, one arm around the front of her shoulders, the other reaching around the front of her waist to grab her hip. He yanked her up off her arms, just far enough in the air that she couldn't quite reach the ground to keep herself up. He kept driving into her, and she was even louder, her hands, with nothing to do, going to her breasts. Stupid bitch, she would do anything to get off.

His eyes closed, and he kept driving, pounding into her. He groaned—it was so good. He thought to what he was doing, and pictured doing it with _her_. That image alone made him breathe heavier, thrust harder. And as she moaned, she started to come, to squeeze him, he imagined it was _her_ making those noises, _her_ begging for him wantonly, _her_ coming, and that alone was enough to send him over the edge and into oblivion.

When he opened his eyes, he remembered where he was, who he was with. And he was angry.

As good as it was, as hot as it had been, it was nothing. It wasn't as good as it would be when it was _her_. And that just pissed him off.

She was stirring, now, having finally recovered some from what they'd been doing. She pushed herself up to the point where she was sitting and looked over at him, giving him the illusion of control. It was a silent question.

"Go, Akemi, that's it for tonight. You know the drill."

She nodded and proceeded to get dressed and left quickly leaving him alone. He got up and walked the few feet to get to his bathroom in the palace. He needed a shower, the smell of her on him wouldn't go well. After all, he was going to be taken in for questioning soon. Playing dumb would only last so long, especially in this place. She had been gone for something like eighteen hours, and the people in the palace were, unfortunately, not complete ignoramuses. They knew something was up.

She was his boss, after all. It was only a matter of time before he was hauled in for a deposition. Him and Ayako were more than enough for this. He would let nothing go after her, his princess. His mistress, he thought with a smirk. Oh, she would love to do that to him, wouldn't she?

All he had to do was keep the palace off her tail until the sun rose. Then she would go into the lake, and it would happen. The bastard would die, and she would be his. It was so simple, so laughably effortless. It almost wasn't fun.

Almost.

He ran his hands through his hair and down his face, rubbing his eyes. What a day. He was tired. He'd only barely made it back before he was missed, and it had not been an easy trip. And, in all honesty, the only reason nobody noticed he had gone was because some people forgot what they had seen. He smiled, enjoying his private little joke. I wonder how that could have happened, he kidded himself.

He turned the water off and walked out to his room still dripping water. He dried himself off, and got dressed, red kimono under white. He combed his hair, trimmed his beard.

After all, he had to look good.

…

Hikifune was pissed off.

Not that Orihime was gone, that was perfectly fine. Everyone has their days, she knew perfectly well, where they just want to take off. No, she was pissed because she hadn't heard about it. She and Orihime were about as close as people came in this place, particularly people of their status. Hikifune knew a lot about Orihime, and that she didn't know the story of this disappearance was just infuriating.

She paced her room, her fists clenched, her teeth grinding. She had started blasting rock music earlier to try and keep her mind occupied with something other than Orihime. It wasn't helping, of course, but one could always hope. In all honesty, she didn't know why she was bothering. Orihime would come back perfectly fine, and Hikifune would guilt trip her, and she would feel bad for a whole two minutes, and everything would be back to normal. At least, that's what she way trying to convince herself.

There was something wrong with the situation, though. She was missing something, something obvious. Something that she should have noticed.

For one thing, there were the general palace guards, none of whom were injured beyond being knocked out. They had all been struck on the back of the head, and apparently without struggle. Whoever had hit them knew what they were doing, and had no intention of staying behind. The line of bodies made a perfect line from Orihime's rooms to outside the wall. This meant, as far as Hikifune could tell, one of two things: One, that Orihime had left the palace, with some of her guards and left the other two behind , apparently clueless, or two, that she had been kidnapped, four of her guards had been taken with her silently, the other two forgotten. Neither were likely, but neither were impossible either.

The two guards must know something, she thought. Were they conspiring? No, Hiroshi was not that kind of a person, not to mention Ayako. Had Orihime told them not to say anything? Possibly. In fact, likely. Orihime was a cautious person, she didn't trust many people. Hell, nobody who had lived in this world for more than a week trusted others. She and Hikifune were close, though. There were very few things that the two of them kept from each other. And the secrets that were kept were the kinds of things that nobody should know.

Hikifune was still pacing, but it was slower now, a reflection of her thought deepening. If Orihime had told her guards to play dumb, there must have been a reason. She must have wanter either time alone or to not involve others in what she was doing. The fact that she had taken some of her guards, though, meant that the latter was more likely. Orihime was not dumb, and she would know perfectly well when or in she needed her guards. She also had the will and authority to stop all of them from coming with her. If she had taken her guards, it meant that she needed them in some way. But then, if she left the two behind, it meant that she was trying to distract the people who would otherwise go looking for her.

If she was bothering to stall people, she would have a reason. And she wouldn't ask her guard to go with her if she was deserting. The conclusion, then, was that she was going into a considerable amount of danger and wanted to deal with the worst of it before anyone else showed up.

But that was such a foolish thing. Leaving only two of her guards back wouldn't delay a search for long, and she would know that perfectly well. Either she needed four for her guards, or she didn't need the delay to last for long.

If it was a matter of her needing the guards, she could have taken Ichigo and Musaru, who were definitely the two best fighters in her group. Chiyo and Atara, the other two, were the kind of people that she would talk their way out of a fight before it began. Hiroshi, the man who got left behind, was by far the hardest to read of anyone in the group, and Ayako was probably the smartest save Orihime.

If she'd needed brute force, she would have taken Hiroshi and Atara, and left Chiyo with Ayako. The fact that she didn't meant that she didn't need brute force, she needed to get somewhere, and because she left only two guards behind, she must not have needed to stall for more than a day, two at most. But what was only a day away?

Well, there was Akiko, the dinosaur she had taken once. But the dinosaur wouldn't hurt Orihime under any circumstances. What was there? The swamp, she thought. That made sense—the swamp was only a good place to go right at sunrise or sunset, which meant that she wouldn't need a long delay, only a day at most, depending on where she was going. And the fact that she'd left at night... well, that didn't necessarily mean anything. Leaving at night could have been calculated, or it could have been coincidental. She could have left at any time, and while night was generally more convenient for sneaking out, it didn't signal exactly what was happening.

Dammit! Her pacing sped up again. She didn't have enough information to go and do something. Even for what she suspected, there was no proof, no evidence. She would just have to sit on it, think some more. As much as she hated it, there was nothing she could do. She would just have to wait.

**FROM HERE DOWN IS THE SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER**

The chapter opens with two people having sex roughly, the man making the woman apologize for something. He is also thinking of someone else the entire time, though it is not clear who that person is. He tells the girl, Akemi, to go, and gets a shower. He thinks about how laughably easy this whole thing is, and he mentions that he only just got back to the palace. He jokes with himself that the people who saw him must have just forgotten somehow. He gets out and makes a point of dressing and grooming. His name is at no point mentioned.

The scene changes to Hikifune, alone in her room pacing as she considers the situation with Orihime's disappearance. She wonders what happened, and, after quite a large amount of thought and logic, puts together that Orihime must have noticed something dangerous and gone off alone to stop said thing. She concludes that, because Orihime only left behind two guards, she didn't need them to hold back the search party for too long, only a day or two at most. She thought that Orihime could have gone to see Akiko, the dinosaur, of to the red swamp. She ended by saying that either way, she had no proof of anything, so there was nothing she could do at the moment.


	24. Faster

So, I have the feeling that a bunch of you are mad at me for killing off Tatsuki. There isn't really a nice way to say this, so I'm just gonna spit it out: it had to happen. There are reasons that involve the plot that are why what happened to Tatsuki happened. It's significant, and it had to happen. The alternative fork I talked about before was something I wrote and didn't like that much. Tatsuki was going to die, and this is the way that I had to make her go. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but that's why I'm the author.

Sorry again about the delay, I'm bad at sticking to schedules when I don't have school to make me. And I'm also sorry about how teasing this chapter is, it's a bit like Snape in AVPM. It's just a massive hint fest. I'm sorry for this chapter, I'm a bit braindead.

**Emmy**

"_In the history of the Royal Realm (the dimension as defined in Chapter One, Subsection 5 of this publication) and, indeed, all five of the dimensions, the dinosaur species (though 'breed' would be perhaps a more accurate term due to the wide variation of animals that fit under the category of 'dinosaur') was the first to come to a full understanding of its spiritual post-mortal potential. As was later copied (most famously) by the Shinigami of Japan and the later-risen Grim of Europe, the dinosaurs were in fact the first beings to develop the concept of the solidification of their own spiritual powers. While it is unclear if this is because dinosaurs came into being first or they were simply more powerful than we, their belated counterparts, it is undeniable that the idea originated with out reptilian predecessors. _

_While human (in reference to the state of death or spiritual existence) knowledge of the powers that dinosaurs once controlled is limited, it is understood that the solidified form of one's power will not, as it does in human souls, solidify into the form of a weapon, but rather a living counterpart. That is to say, a dinosaur who is not in a released state (known to Shinigami as Shikai, to Grim as Beginning) will appear to be two dinosaurs, often completely independent of one another. As interpreted by Third Prince himself, "The sealed Eradicators (Zanpakuto to those of Japan) seems to take the shape of its spirit. Much in the way that we humans are able to externalize our Eradicators when training for Middle (Bankai to those of Japan), the dinosaurs are able to do so, seemingly without training or any apparent effort. This implies either of two potentials: Either the dinosaurs' power works on a different level or in a different manner than out own, which is entirely possible, or they (the dinosaurs) are more powerful than us to the extent that training to externalize their power's spirit is rendered completely unnecessary. Either way, we are facing the unknown, which could prove difficult and painful. Dinosaurs should not be shorted, nor do they deserve to be underestimated. We fought a fierce battle with them in the past, and none who live to remember it have any desire to see it again."_

__From "Life and Death: An Introspective History of the Five Realms" By Geoffrey Alistair of Chiswick, London, England, written in the year of 1312 A.D. Chapter Two: Before Humans, and Who We Hid to Get Where We Are Now; Subsection 2: The Development of Spiritual Powers in Those Other than Human__

It was almost sunrise. Orihime had sent Ichigo to go wake the others (none of them had gone to sleep, but she didn't have to know that) and bring them to her. She told him to leave Sato. Sato wasn't necessary. When they were assembled, They watched as the sun rose, making the haze over the lake transparent, and reflecting off the water. The first rays of the sun hit the water at a slant, so much of one that the light made a line across the lake. Orihime smiled. There is was.

"Come, it's time to be going," she said, and the five of them were hurriedly on their way, following the line.

They quickly fell into a regular, pounding rhythm of feet and muscles against trees and the ground as they moved quickly to the west. That was where they would have to go to find the King, if he lived, and ensure that the palace was safe. If the king was dead, they were going to die. All of them. There was no hope, nothing to change. The Chief Caregivers and the Three Princes would not be able to stop the destruction.

The king was an old man, strong willed, and a bit senile, as all old men have a right to be. But he was ancient, more ancient than anyone left alive. When he died, became a Soul Reaper for the first time, Yamamoto wasn't due to be born for another couple thousand years. They used to say that he had a brother, one who died in the war for control of the palace. They said that that was made him so strong, gave him the ability, let him save everyone. They said that the screams of his dying kin were what sparked his action.

Orihime could believe it. She had seen and done the same, only able to do her worst when someone's life was on the line. When his life was on the line. Only his.

But that was silly, Orihime thought, comparing herself to such a selfless man. She would never have been able to do what he had done. She hadn't the strength nor the selflessness in her. She wasn't so noble as to save the world when the one she cared about was gone. She would have killed herself rather than live to see him destroyed.

The King was, nowadays, little more than a hermit. He lived literally alone in a tree in the middle of this vast forrest that made up the Royal Realm. He had his reasons, of course. Nowadays, he was all but powerless, all of it having left him for what he had done. It didn't matter if he was alone, though, just as long as he was alive. His life was what kept everything still, stopped everything from moving. His death would break the spell, release prisoners that should not be released under any circumstances.

If The King died, the dinosaurs would be let loose. There was no way that the Soul Reapers could ever survive that. The dinosaurs were... Orihime practically shivered. They would never win that fight. They hadn't truly won the first time, only cheated themselves into a temporary standstill while humans got control of the pretty building that they hadn't even built.

The truly terrible thing was, though, that almost nobody knew.

The King had given the order that the only ones who were to know of his sacrifice were those who absolutely must. The Chief Caregiver knew, and a few member of the guard. Other than that, though, nobody appreciated what had been done to save them. Not even Ichigo knew.

Hell, Orihime wasn't too sure she really understood. She wasn't so sure she wanted to understand. Ignorance, after all, truly is bliss.

As she ran, Orihime tried to get her mind to slow, to think of something more pleasant, more restful. She hadn't slept in days, she needed to think of something pleasant, something that could put her at ease with the running. She, as usual, ended up thinking of Kurosaki, who was running just in front of her and to the left. She smiled in a little bit of a daze. Kurosaki. Hmm...

She found herself staring at his back, her eyes slowly working their way from his ass to his waste to his shoulders, seeing how the muscles were relaxed as his arms hung out behind him, helping his aerodynamics. Her gaze moved down his arms to his forearm and hands, his fingers, thinking about how wonderful he was in every way, and how wonderful his hands were... That was no good, and now was not the time. There was no time for that, she scolded herself. Shaking her head to rid herself of such thoughts, she tried to compromise by just not thinking dirty things. She could do that much, at least. Her honor was still worth something, after all. She moved her gaze to his hair, his neck. It was sweating a little, the orange hair sticking to it, a little darker in the places where it was wet.

This wasn't any good. In her head, she told her libido to fuck off and die in a hole. It was doing her no good. She looked up to try and clear her head, but quickly had to look down because the sun was in her eyes.

Geez. They must have been running longer than she's previously thought. Time for a break, then. She hadn't slept in a while, anyways, and, as much as she hated to admit her weakness, she wouldn't last much longer in this state. She needed to sleep, to hell with who heard what she said. They were big boys, they could take it. And whether or not she could didn't really matter. It's not like her life was worth anything anyways. She could live with embarrassment. She was tougher than that.

She was just about to call out to the others when She heard a shout from her left. She stopped on the branch that she had been about to stop on anyways, and looked over. It was Musaru.

She almost ran to him, but did the one thing that was more important: She drew her sword and made a swipe in the branch she was standing on, pointing in the direction that she needed to go. She could not afford to lose the trail, not now.

Then she ran to Musaru. "What is it?" She asked, and she looked at him to see what was wrong. He, though, wasn't looking back at her, but at the ground. She followed his gaze and gasped. Chiyo saw, and let out a little scream. Ichigo saw, and immediately looked back at Orihime.

"Is that," he began, before falling silent. He saw the look on her face, and that was all that he really needed to know to confirm his suspicions.

It was Akiko.

At least, it might have been Akiko, it was hard to tell though all the blood. The face, the body, everything was distorted. The place where Orihime had sliced into Akiko the first time, to destroy her, had been, on this dinosaur, cut over afresh, so it was impossible to tell if the dinosaur was her or not.

Frantically, Orihime turned to her mind. She called out for Akiko, but there was no response. Nothing. She searched the world, all of the souls she had destroyed, even collected over the years. Nothing. Nothing. Nowhere. Akiko wasn't there.

No, of course Akiko wasn't there. She was on the ground in front of her, covered in blood. She had probably died screaming for help, crying out for her mistress, who hadn't heard a thing.

Orihime called out to Musaru, who had jumped to the ground to get a closer look. "Can you tell when this happened?"

"Recently," was his immediate reply. "In the last day, maybe two. Not less than twelve hours, the body's cold," he paused as he tried to bend out her leg. It wouldn't move very well. "and she's stiff, so it must have been at least twelve, maybe sixteen hours."

"I see." Orihime jumped down off the branch onto the ground, where Akiko lay dead. "What cut her, do you think?"

"Oh," he sighed, "Probably nothing identifiable. I mean, a sword, something a basic shape. It was probably done while the sword was in shikai, which would make it impossible to trace. The killer's spiritual pressure is long since gone."

Orihime nodded. She hadn't started crying yet. She was a little proud of herself, but even more ashamed. What kind of person would be proud of not crying when one of her best friends had just been clearly murdered?

She turned away. She couldn't see this. Not now, not today.

"Um, could you lot please help me start digging? I need to bury the body." The practically felt them nodding, none of them wanting to say anything out loud for fear of offending her. She almost smirked. They needn't have worried about that.

"When we're done, we'll continue on until nightfall," She said, and again, she felt them all nod. She jerked her own head, and they all got to work. Orihime put her exhaustion aside; now was not the time to be weak. She knew this, she had always known it.

There is never time to be weak. Weak people don't deserve to live. I don't deserve to live, she thought as she dug into the soft ground with her bare hands—none of them had shovels. But I'm still alive, so I'll be strong. I don't have to rest yet.

And she didn't rest. She kept digging until there was a hole, and placed the body in without really seeing it. She didn't think she could bear to see that blood. Not again.

And when she hole was filled, she carried on, removed from her exhaustion. They started running again, and this time, she devoted everything that she had to speed.

She just wanted this to be over with, she thought, fighting away tears. I just want to go home so I can cry.

And even as she thought that, she realized that she had no home. And all that thought did was make her run faster.


	25. Secret

Chapter twenty five... phew. This took a while, didn't it? To those of you who are still reading, thank you so much. There are a lot of you, I think, based on the charts of how many people read each chapter. Thank you so much for sticking with me, even if this story is crap.

I've gotten a bunch of requests to make my chapters longer, and I'm sorry to say that that's not the case this chapter. Next chapter is short, this one is medium, but two from now is long. I have that far into the future planned out as for what's going to be in each chapter. Right now, though, I'm trying to get something, anything out so that I don't lose my readers.

**Emmy**

_One Hundred and Twenty-Seven Years after Orihime's Arrival in the Royal Realm, or Sixty Three years before Ichigo's Arrival in the Royal Realm. The Year of Orihime's Promotion to the rank of Chief Caregiver._

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?" She must have been. Honestly, this place was so surreal, and she didn't think that she quite recognized it.

"Why would you think that?"

"Because you're dead, Kurosaki kun."

He smiled at her, a little sadly. "Yes, that is quite the issue, isn't it?"

"So I am asleep?"

"I don't know. Why don't you tell me?"

She looked at herself, wearing not a hakama and kimono, but a skirt she hadn't seen in centuries, along with a shirt that she remembered from another lifetime. He was wearing what he had always liked to wear. Tight blue jeans, a t-shirt with the silhouette of a drum set painted on top of dark red. She looked at his face.

The same as it ever was. It was that same expression that made her want to crack up as she imagined any number of different hairstyles, earrings, even makeup.

"I suppose I could always pinch myself."

He gave a sad chuckle and looked down into his lap. "Yeah, you could. But then you would wake up, wouldn't you?"

She sighed. "Then I am dreaming."

"Yeah, you are."

"I see."

They were silent, staring out over the sea of foliage in front of them. They were sitting in an unusually high tree, one that went above the canopy of the others, making the leaves below them look like grass on hills that went until the end of sight in all directions.

"Do you know where we are?"

"Do you?"

" I think... are we in my head?"

He gave a grunt and a nod. "I see."

And they were silent again.

"Why are you here, Kurosaki kun?"

He looked up from his lap to her face. "You brought me here. You tried to bring yourself to home, or whatever was the most real thing for you. In this case, it was your own mind and... well, me."

"So... this means that you are the most comforting, real thing to me?"

"I think so."

"Am I imagining you? Are you really dead?"

"Yes, I am your imagination."

she looked down to her lap. "I see," she said once again. Her voice was quivering, her hands wrapping nervously against each other. "Well, then, imagination, how can I help you?" She was trying her best to sound chipper and bright, but it wasn't working. There was no real use lying to herself, she should have known.

"I'm here to tell you," he said, "to accept changes."

She turned to him and laughed, a high, chiming sound. A nervous laugh. "What does that mean?"

"It means that you need to move on."

"What does that mean?" Her voice was louder, and screechy—she had little control over her tone.

"You need to get over me, Inoue."

"What does that _mean_?" she all but screamed. She jumped to her feet and started pacing, walking back and forth on their branch. "What is there for me to get over, exactly? That I practically killed you? That I practically gilled the person you loved? I couldn't save her, that's close enough." She was in hysterics now, her hands gesturing wildly as she talked, her voice completely wild as she prevented herself from crying. It was harder than usual. When there were other people, she could keep everything nice and quietly shut inside. When it was just him, though, everything became more difficult.

"It meant exactly what I said, Inoue. You must accept that I am not who I was, and you are not who you were. There was a time for you and me, the two of us, but that time is passed. It passed a long time ago. Accept it. Move on."

"And how," she began in something of a whisper, though she was too visibly upset for the intended effect, "do you expect me to do that? And why should I? Remembering you is good for me, Kurosaki kun. It reminds me to do my duty. It tells me not to live by my emotions. It reminds me that emotions are nothing more than weakness that get you killed."

"And I remind you of this, how?"

"Because my emotions got you killed." She resumed her pacing, which had stopped when she's gone off on her last tangent.

"So you're going to stay like this forever?"

"Stay like what?"

"Like this!" and he stood up on the branch and gestured at her. "Look at you, Inoue. You're wearing that outfit that you had the night Sora came back. Your mind, your mental state, hasn't let you get beyond that night. That was almost two hundred years ago, Inoue! Two centuries! And you still think of yourself that way. And me," he he added, gesturing to his own body, "wearing what I wore as a human. You barely knew me as a human, Inoue. You knew me as a Soul Reaper."

"And your body, Inoue! You've not aged a day since you were fifteen! Sure you look a little older, but you and I both know that it's just a change in style, and in attitude. And here I am, a figment of your imagination, the exact same way. I look exactly the way I used to look before I even became a Soul Reaper. I'm your goddamn crush, Inoue, not someone you knew. Not someone worth remembering two hundred years later." He calmed himself down, and gestured for her to sit back down, which she did, albeit reluctantly. He joined her, and leaned over to hug her around the waste as she leaned sideways into him.

"Everything changes, Orihime," he said. "Everything and everyone. You can't stay the same way forever. You can't kill yourself like this. I'm dead, Orihime. I'm already gone. I shouldn't be hurting you anymore. You're hurting yourself, and you need to stop." He grabbed her hand and held it with the one that wasn't around her waste. "It's time you let go."

She was sobbing into his shoulder. "I can't."

He let out a sigh. "No, I suppose not." and they were silent for a while, looking over the landscape. Orihime's eyes began to droop. Of, she was so very tired. She fought back a yawn, but it couldn't be helped.

"Go to sleep, Orihime," he said, "and remember this when you wake up. For your sake."

When she woke, she remembered nothing of her dream but a large amount of green and an immeasurable amount of sadness.

Orihime jerked awake, her torso's muscles clenching at once as she raised her self to sitting position. Or at least tried to—she was prevented halfway though as she felt her head collide with something that was both remarkably solid and that caused her to fall back onto her makeshift mattress. Groaning, she clutched her head and resumed her attempt to get up, though more slowly this time. When one of her eyes opened, she saw what she had hit: Kurosaki's head. He was sitting next to her, clutching his head in exactly the same way she was. Atara was next to him, laughing. "That was on hell of a bonk, are you both alright?"

"ugh," Orihime groaned out before falling back into her pillow again. Ichigo let out a similar sentiment, apparently in agreement, and she felt him lie down next to her. Atara walked away some, roaring with laughter. When Orihime felt alive enough to use her eyes and move her head, she turned to look at Ichigo to find him looking right back at her, having turned his own head at the exact same moment. Each of then had their hands covering one of their eyes.

Their eyes met for a few moments before they burst into simultaneous laughter. Even when Orihime rolled back onto her back after several seconds, she was still laughing, her whole body shaking with her mirth. It took them a few minutes to calm down; they kept stopping for a few seconds, thinking they were calm, until one would break it and they would be lost in amusement for another thirty seconds.

When they were finally back, Orihime sat up and, still smiling, reached down and gave Ichigo a hand sitting up. "Is your head okay, Ichigo?"

"Yeah," he grinned back, "It's all good."

As the two of them rose to their feet, Orihime could feel her cheery mood slipping away into an abyss of exhaustion. How long had she slept? Four Hours? Six? Six hours of sleep was not enough to make up for practically three days without, not to mention the time to come before she would rest again. She forced herself not to yawn as she turned to her guards. Now, just as always, was not the time to show weakness. Weakness has no place in any world. Those who are weak die.

She also had to work to keep herself from sighing. It was so stupid, that something like that had become her mantra. Sad, but necessary.

After a brief conversation with her guards, most of which involved talk of food and what was happening back at the palace in their absence, the five of them began another day of running, and Orihime, as usual, drifted away into her own thoughts. She was careful, though, not to go off track.

After a few hours of going in mental circles, Orihime became vaguely aware of a conversation going on to her left side, between Atara and Chiyo. By the time that Orihime was consciously paying attention to their conversation, it was almost over.

"-have no _idea_ where we're going! Not to mention why we're going there, wherever 'there' is." Chiyo, of course. What a girl. She wasn't made to be a guard. She was too smart, and far too curious. She noticed too much. To her, the truth was more important than anything. It was a good quality in a person, but a terrible thing to have in a personal body guard, especially when the person being guarded was not the most honest or open. Even more unfortunate that Orihime was a very secretive person.

"It doesn't matter," Atara said sharply. "Our duty is to protect and obey Inoue-Sama" Orihime cringed a little on the inside. She hated it when they called her that. "If she doesn't want to tell us what is happening, then she doesn't have to, not should she. Do not forget your duty. That's all that there is to be said. Now do your duty."

Chiyo didn't answer. At least she was honest, Orihime thought. At least she didn't lie. Orihime didn't really mind that Chiyo used her head. In all honest, Orihime didn't like that she had a personal guard at all, but all the complaining in the world had done her no good on that front, so she dealt with it. If a guard had less than optimal affection for her, that was fine. It was not Orihime's job to make anyone love her. It was not her job nor her desire to make anyone die for her. If Chiyo didn't want to, than good on her. At least she wasn't a blind idiot.

But what was she complaining about? Orihime thought back. None of her guard had any idea where they were going, and were following her blindly. All that she had told them was that it concerned the life and safety of the King of the Realm, a cause which singly demanded the sacrifice of all their lives without hesitation.

Chiyo always had been the most curious. Perhaps...

Maybe she would tell them everything. Maybe she could tell them. If she didn't, and they died, they wouldn't remember why. If she did tell them and they survived, though, there would be nothing besides her command to keep them from talking about it in the future. With Chiyo, Orihime's command was not worth the truth, which, as inconvenient as it was, was a good thing. The truth almost always came before anything else, especially blind loyalty. That was how Chiyo thought.

She mulled over the idea in her head. It's not like she could tell all of them except Chiyo, that would end in calamity. Chiyo would figure out that they were keeping secrets, and, as much as Orihime preferred honesty over loyalty, there were times when even she just needed her allies.

It was all or nothing, she supposed. She could tell them all, or she could not tell them all.

What a frustrating decision.

When she's started running out of the palace, Orihime had had no intentions of telling any of them anything. They could see what she did and make according assumptions, but she hadn't wanted to tell them everything flat out. The idea was just so... odd. They were guards. They didn't need to know this kind of thing.

But times change, and the more Orihime thought about it, the more viable an option telling her guards the whole story seemed to become.

She weighed the pros and cons according to each individual member of the guard that was with her at that moment. Ichigo didn't mind not knowing the details enough to say anything, she knew. He was smart enough to understand that he didn't need to know everything. He would follow her literally into hell. He was fine. Musaru, too, would be fine. Musaru was man who was loyal to anyone who had a kind disposition towards him. He was loyal to nobody so much as Orihime. The idea of questioning what she was leading them into wouldn't even enter his mind. Atara was safe, he would follow any order she gave him. He hero-worshiped her, which was sad, but useful. Again, the problem was Chiyo.

There were two options: if she told Chiyo, she could run away. If she ran, Orihime would send Atara after her to offer her one chance to come back before killing her if she refused. Atara would do it. Ichigo would do it, though he would be reluctant. He wouldn't like it at all, but he would do it. Musaru...she knew he would never kill someone who innocent.

Musaru was not made for war. He was not a violent person, much like Orihime and Ichigo weren't violent people. But they had been able to change. They had become ruthless in their age and experience. Musaru had never forgotten his morals. Orihime smiled a bit ruefully at the thought. He didn't belong here any more than she did.

Orihime had changed with time. She had learned what war was, what violence was. She had seen what must be done to win, and the price of losing. Orihime no longer held onto foolish things like standards. War was war. Talking about honor and morality has no place in war. War is nothing but violence, and violence should not be mixed with morals. The two were incompatible.

Musaru was a walking contradiction. He would not kill Chiyo unless she turned on him or Orihime.

But no, she was getting head of herself. There was every chance that Chiyo would take the whole thing perfectly well and accept Orihime's reasons. If She told them the whole story, there was a chance that Chiyo would develop a loyalty complex. If she showed them that she was a human being, perhaps she would follow Orihime for a reason more important than just duty.

Orihime couldn't fight back a sigh. If she kept the story a secret, than Chiyo's loyalty would be in question. She could not go into a potential battle without all of her allies defined for her. She needed them loyal.

Telling them would be fine. If Chiyo stayed, then she would have proven her loyalty, and gossip would not be a problem. If Chiyo ran, than at least she would know who was truly on her side.

She would have to tell them. All of it.

She felt herself shuddering. It was not a happy story.


	26. Dowager

Hey,

so, as I said, this chapter is super short, I just wanted to torment you before I got to next chapter, which is basically the entire mythology of the Royal Realm. I might have to split it up, depending on how much I go into the various little stories. Basically, I know way more about this world than I have any intention or means of telling you guys, but some of the stories are so cool, I just want to put them in. But next chapter has some big stuff in it, too. It's an important one.

This chapter is kinda crappy, too. Sorry.

Also, for reference of this chapter: A Dowager is a widow who holds the property of her deceased husband. It's usually a respectful term, for women who inherit position and status. Being called "Dowager," is similar to a formal title like "Countess" or "Duchess." Dowager has none of the negative connotations of a black widow, a woman who kills her husbands for their money. Call this your vocab lesson for the day.

Aijou829: If/when you read this, you turned off PM'ing, so I couldn't respond to your last note. If you can enable it, I'll get back to you.

**Emmy**

"What do you know?"

She pretended to think. "Well, for one, I know that you can't wrap your hand around your elbow and make your finger bleed."

Hiroshi fought back a snort of laughter.

"Kouta Ayako! Remember your place."

She smirked. "I know my place very well, thank you very much."

"Then tell me, soldier, _what do you know?_"

"I don't know anything, why would I? She left in the middle of the night, I wasn't on shift. I was with my husband, he can attest to that."

"Your husband, Kouta, is bias. His word does no exonerate you." The voice was ever-so smug as it said those words. Ayako's grin faded in favor of an angry frown. She barely stopped herself from yelling her answer:

"Don't you dare suggest that my husband does not do his duty. He would not lie for me over the safety of a Chief Caregiver. He would rather I die than anyone that important, as would I." She paused and drew herself up in her chair, straightening her back to make a show of her pride in him. "He would never put me before this world. He has more sense of duty than that."

"Your husband's sense of duty is not what is in question here. Yours is."

She sighed. "I don't know anything."

"I don't believe you."

"Well, that's your problem, then, isn't it?"

"Have you no sense of honor?"

"My _honor_," she practically spat the word, "is none of your concern. My honor involves protecting Inoue sama with my life, that's all there is to it. If I could, I would go to her now, but I can't."

The interrogator leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Would you tell me if you did know anything?"

Ayako thought for a moment. "It depends on what I hypothetically knew."

The man, their interrogator, having grown tired of not getting answers from her, turned to her companion. "And you, Zamiya Hiroshi? What exactly do you know?"

He barely kept himself from smirking. It would not do well to be found out, and he had a part to play. There was an audience here, after all; not only was there Ayako and the interrogator, but Hikifune was listening in as a matter of standard procedure. "I know nothing, sir," he said, making sure his back was ramond straight, his expression serious, his voice deep and honest.

"I don't believe you."

"I'm sorry that you think so little of me and my honor, but I assure you, sir, that I know nothing of Inoue sama's whereabouts, otherwise I would be at her side at this very moment. Also, if I knew anything about the conditions of her departure, I would tell you in the hope of discovering her and helping her. I can't tell you anything, though, because, unfortunately, I don't know anything."

"And you expect me to believe this?"

"I expect you to find the truth, which is what I am providing you. I would hope you would recognize it when you see it."

The room was full of a ringing silence.

"Very well. You will both be placed under arrest, remaining only in your chambers until further notice. There will be guards stationed around your complex, and some kido. If you try to escape, you will be," and he paused to look at Hikifune, who nodded, "you will be _dealt with_. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes sir," they said together. The interrogator sat for only another moment until he, convinced of their willingness to follow his instructions, got up and left them in the room alone with Hikifune.

"Stand up,"And they were on their feet. "Follow me."

The walk from the interrogation room to their chambers was a long one, though it was through I highly populated ares of the palace. The birthing chambers were placed in seemingly random places around the palace, and each chief Caregiver chose their location by their own personal preferences; Orihime had chosen to live close to the wall, a place that received very little traffic. Usually, Hikifune preferred a lot of people, but now, she was thankful for the lack of company—it was good cover. Even though there were some people, they weren't paying attention. It made it easier to be discreet and unnoticed. It wouldn't do to be heard. At least the people around them didn't know what was happening in detail, and wouldn't recognize what was happening.

It was in a low voice, nearly indistinguishably, that she got out a hurried: "I won't ask you to tell me what she wanted you to keep secret, but did she want you to tell me anything?"

The three kept walking as if nothing had happened. Appearances were important, more so than almost anything. Thank goodness that the guards were smart enough for that, at least.

The reply sounded remarkably similar to a "Dowager."

Dowager... Hikifune barely kept herself from showing the surprise on her face. Dowager...

Orihime had gone to the King. Why would she do that?

Could the King be dead?

The thought was horrifying, but what else could it mean? A Dowager, a wife who inherits the status of her husband... she remembered a passage from a book she'd read a long time ago: "_...some say that the King, though eternally unseen by his subjects, is all but married to the Realm of his family, the Royal Realm. Though the Chief Caregivers of the Royal Realm insist that the man is alive, it is difficult to understand how the King, if such a man exists, would be able to marry a world (it should be noted that he is believed to be married to the spirit of the world of the Royal Realm, though this remains unconfirmed. How can such a thing, after all, be confirmed? It is more likely that The King's power, that of his Zanpakuto, has an affect on the state of the world or its inhabitants rather than the spirit of the world exists. The existence of such a spirit is unconfirmed at best, frightening and all but impossible at worst). And more importantly, what could he be doing that requires him to stay hidden, out of the sight of his subjects? If he is truly married to them and the Realm, what would the Realm get as a Dowager if anything were to happen to him, the King?"_

Oh no. Oh, God no.

Orihime thought he was dead. And if she was right, and he was dead...

They were dead.


	27. Illusion

Hey guys,

So, yeah, this chapter took an insidiously long amount of time to write, and it was originally going to be a lot longer and have a lot more in it, but it was just taking so damned long to write. This is going to be one of those part one, part two chapters, maybe part three depending on how much gets put in. I am so, so sorry that this took so long. In the time since I last updated, I have spent two weeks sick and drifting in and out of consciousness, two weeks in a massive state of writer's block, and the rest of that time agonizing about how to write this. I got a beta (!), the illustrious Aijou, who, I am convinced, has singlehandedly multiplied the amount of sense I make. So yes, this chapter is not complete, but I really wanted to get you something.

Everything that I have in here about the history of the Realms is entirely of my own imagination. You'll understand this once you read it, but there is no source for my explanations of how everything works. Everything you don't recognize is mine.

A note on this chapter: If you don't know who Morgan Freeman is, you suck.

**Emmy**

Ichigo was on duty, running a lookout pattern. He would leap from tree to tree, branch to branch, looking around, silently perusing his surroundings, before moving on. Ichigo liked being on guard duty, especially here, where everything was quiet and black and still. He liked silence, and the way that you could just fall into quiet darkness without another thought. He liked being able to use his abilities, stretch his muscles. He liked being able to look at her without anyone else noticing. And he liked being able to think.

She was laying on her back on a branch, her eyes, closed, her breathing rhythmic, pretending to be asleep. The idea that a woman like her would sleep still and on her back with arms at her side was purely ludicrous. Plus, her face was completely relaxed; Orihime's face was never relaxed when she slept. When she was really asleep, there was a frown on her face, almost a pout. It was something that, Ichigo suspected, was left over from her days as a human. One of the few things about her that hadn't changed over the years.

Suddenly, Ichigo felt very old. Hundreds and hundreds of years old. He had existed for almost half a millennia. He had endured, existed for the length of over five lifetimes, and look where all that patience had gotten him: This life.

He leapt to another branch, landing silently on a spot that was devoid of bark. He breathed in, slowly out, and then became completely still, not breathing, not blinking. His heart beat was slow, and he could feel each thump-thump against his ribcage, in his neck, in his arms, in his legs. He could feel the power that came from the stillness, the almost magic that flowed through him and made all his body hum.

He opened his eyes, taking in the sights that can only be truly appreciated in darkness. The way that the moon could light up the horizon, give everything a silhouette, a flowing shape. In darkness, everything was simple, abstract. In the almost total blackness of night, it was easy to let thought slip away, and simply exist.

But simplicity didn't last. It couldn't. And the need for air made him breathe, and the silence was broken, and thought returned to his mind.

He was old. So old. A man who counted his life by the centuries rather than decades or years.

Too old.

Despite himself, Ichigo looked back down into the camp at her, still pretending to sleep in the hopes that nobody would notice. It was a failing effort. Even now, all these years later, she still sucked at lying.

"You should ask her." Musaru, the other person on guard at the moment, had caught up to Ichigo. He had stayed still too long.

He didn't turn around to answer. "Ask her what?"

Musaru laughed, a rare thing. "Oh, I don't know, everything you've wanted to ask her about for the last four hundred years?"

"And why would I do that? Especially now, while she's under all of this stress. She needs her rest."

"Yes, and she's _clearly _getting it." There was amusement in his voice. Musaru was the only person, besides Ichigo, who could tell when Orihime was really sleeping. Musaru was the only one who cared for her nearly as much as Ichigo. He was the only one who had any true conception of their relationship.

In truth, he wanted to talk to her. He wanted to ask her anything, everything that came to his mind. He wanted to know how she'd fared in the more than hundred years he hadn't seen her, he wanted to know where they were going, and how she knew that the king was in danger, and when she would start smiling more, and why she didn't smile for real now, and, and, and... The list was endless. And yet...

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"We're in the middle of a mission, the other guards are here, and me asking her personal questions will not make her feel any better."

"You can get rid of the other guards quite easily, they wont even know that anything's happening. Yes, we're in the middle of a mission, but this mission apparently has the potential to be our last, and she may want to get things off her chest, which would make her feel much better, not to mention how it would make you feel."

Finally, Ichigo turned to look at him. "Would you do it?"

The blackness blocked out Musaru's expression, so Ichigo could only guess at his sadness by the tone of his voice. "No, I wouldn't. I shouldn't, because I'm not you. I think that she wants you to."

And they were silent, staring at what they supposed, through the darkness, were one another's eyes. Ichigo could imagine that Musaru's eyes were deep, dark, serious.

"Do you want to listen?" Ichigo's voice was gravelly, low. He was working hard to keep his emotions out of his tone.

"Only if she wants me to know."

Ichigo nodded. "Will you help me wake the others? Its best if they aren't here to listen."

"Of course. We'll just put them to work. It's almost time for their patrol anyways."

"Dibs on Chiyo." Musaru chuckled at Ichigo. Atara hated waking up.

"Fine, but you should be prepared to deal with miss motormouth." Ichigo smiled. "Let's go," he said, and the two of them leapt quietly onto their comrades' branches.

It didn't take much to get Atara and Chiyo awake and on their patrol. Atara proved a pain to wake up, but nothing too strenuous. It was only a matter of minutes until Ichigo and Musaru were the only guards left in camp, Orihime still feigning sleep. Musaru lay down on his back and went into meditation mode, conversing with his zanpakuto, completely oblivious to the world around him.

He was alone with her.

He crept through the foliage, slowly making his way to her. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to ask, or how. His thought process was muddled, and he couldn't keep his ideas straight. And when he got to her, he had no plan. He had no conception of what to say, or how to say it, or...

And then he saw that it didn't matter. He sat down by her feet, curling his body up into something like the fetal position. His mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat, and this time, managed to get words out.

"Inoue, why are you still awake?"

"I'm not awake, I'm asleep," she said, and Ichigo couldn't keep himself from laughing. Some things never change.

"Come on now, Inoue, talk to me. What gives?"

She had grinned a little at his laughter, but now her amusement faded. She was silent for a moment, her eyes closed, her body flat against the tree bough. "I guess I'm a bit scared."

"There's no need for that, Inoue. You have nothing to be scared of. We will protect you, with out lives if we must."

"Yes, and that is what I'm scared of."

"What? You're scared that we'll have to die? What's that code for, scared of responsibility? Isn't it a bit late for that, Inoue?"

She sighed, and finally, her eyes opened, reflecting nothing. They were in nearly total darkness, there was nothing to reflect. Still, though, it seemed a bit... he couldn't think of a word for it. Her eyes were black, so black he couldn't see any reflection or color in their sockets. And yet, he could tell when they were open or closed.

"Yes," she said, "It is a bit late, isn't it?"

And once again, in spite of himself, Ichigo was chuckling. "Only a few hundred years," and Orihime was chuckling too. But it was nervous laughter, the sounds of awkward small talk in an attempt to delay the inevitable.

There was more silence, more quiet, more nothingness. It stretched on and on and on, and Ichigo couldn't stop himself from asking, no matter how much he wanted to: "What has you so scared?"

"Oh, this and that," she sighed. " Nothing too bad, Kurosaki-kun."

"I don't believe you."

She laughed.

"You wouldn't be worried if there was nothing to worry about, you're smarter than that."

She was silent again, staring up.

"Oh, come on, Inoue! There has to be something." and she was still, not moving, not making a sound. It was infuriating. "Inoue," he tried to calm down, to not draw the attention of the other guards. " I'm risking my life here. Why?"

"You are risking your life for the Soul King. That is all that you need to know."

"Apparently not, if you've been up all night worrying about it. Your business is my business, Inoue. Please, let me in. Tell me."

She did the oddest thing, just then. She let her head flop to one side, and muttered what Ichigo could have sworn was a curse directed at him before she got up and sat, Indian style, in front of him. She was looking in his eyes, he knew. He couldn't see her, but he could feel her.

"It's not a pleasant story."

"I guessed as much."

"It's very long, and you will not be able to tell anyone."

"I understand."

She let out a breath, and seemed to be nodding to herself, talking her into whatever it is she was going to do.

"Kurosaki-kun," she began, "This is a story that is told only to the Chief Caregivers. It..." she trailed off, trying to find the words to explain. "I will show you how I imagine that everything has happened."

He nodded, taking something of a leap of faith. He could have sworn that she smiled at him.

"Very well," she said. "I need you to look at something for me. I know you can't see perfectly, but even just a little bit will work. Are you ready?" He nodded again.

"Okay. It will take a minute, but you will see soon enough. The truth behind this world is complicated, and there aren't really words to explain it."

Yet again, Ichigo nodded. He was confused, but trusted that she knew what she was doing. He trusted Inoue. He trusted Orihime.

She drew her sword, which she had been laying next to, and laid it across her lap, going into a meditation pose with it. She was talking to her sword. She remained that way for several minutes, apparently talking Kuchikukan into something, and then...

Her eyes opened. "Kurosaki," she said, "Please look at this sword," and she raised a zanpakuto to eye level. Except... Kuchikukan was still in her lap. She had two swords, one on her knees, one in her hands. How...?

"Do you see it, Kurosaki-kun?" And he nodded. He had seen it. "Do you know what it is?" And he shook his head. He didn't understand. In all honesty, she hadn't really expected him to. It was all a bit unfathomable.

"Let me give you a hint," she said, and she raised the sword, holding it as if she was about to drop it blade first into the bough below her. She looked at him to make sure he was paying attention.

"Shatter."

Ichigo tried and failed to keep himself from gasping. He understood.

"Kyoka Suigetsu."

And suddenly, Ichigo was blinking at the brightness of the world around him. He was still sitting, he was sure, but he wasn't sitting on anything—the branch was gone. Orihime wasn't in front of him anymore. In fact, she wasn't anywhere, as far as he could tell. Then again, he wouldn't see anything she didn't want him to see. She was in control of his senses. She was in control of Kyoka Suigetsu. Vaguely, he wondered how, but it didn't really matter too much. All it meant was exactly what she said: she wanted to show him something.

The first thing he saw was a green blob. It was a cell, he decided—there were smaller blobs in it that he recognized from biology textbooks lifetimes ago. Organelles, they were called; the little things that make life work.

Suddenly, there was a voice. Not Orihime's voice, which surprised him, but another one. What was truly bizarre, it was speaking in English. He knew that voice from somewhere... Then he realized who it was, and shrugged it off. That wasn't really here or there.

"This is Algae," the voice said, "The first known life to contain a soul." and the blob spun slowly on the spot, giving him a three-dimensional view of the algae.

"Wait," He said, "plants have souls?"

"Yes," the voice said. A deep, man's voice. "Humans are very naive to think that we are the only individuals who have souls. All animals, all plants, and most fungi have a spiritual form." Ichigo thought about it, and supposed it kind of made sense. How else could there be any grass in the Soul Society? How could the Menos Forrest exist without trees?" Huh. It made sense, except...

"I thought that those were fake trees that were made of quartz. You mean that they have souls?"

"Yes," the voice said, and the image in front of him changed. The cell disappeared, and instead he saw a single tree from the Menos Forrest, black and disturbing as ever. "Do you remember how the trees in Hueco Mundo seemed to shatter and become sand?"

"Yes," and he did remember, rather vividly, seeing Ishida—they never did get around to calling each other by their first names on a matter of principal—pinch off the tip of one such tree and, with a simple roll of his fingers, cause it to disperse into practically nothing like dry clay.

"What you saw shattering was not the tree itself, but a small portion of the tree's soul's mask. When trees become hollows, they explode, just like humans, and reform in Hueco Mundo. They, however, lose their entire body, and instead transform into their masks. You've heard of how old trees are often dead on the inside? Their hollow centers serve the same purpose as the hole in the chest of a hollow human or other animal. Rather than being symbolic of no longer heaving a heart, trees that are hollow have nothing left of their former selves. That is to say, the center of a tree is what grows first, and, when they lose their center, they lose themselves. Trees in the Menos Forrest also have no roots, which symbolizes the same thing."

And as Ichigo watched, the tree spun slowly and became somewhat transparent so he could see that it was, in fact, hollow.

"The sand in Hueco Mundo, also, is made of various plants that have died, mostly grass and Algae. However, these souls are usually weak, and in the proximity that they have to the Menos and Adjuchas underneath them, often simply scatter into the wind. Since they are killed by fellow hollows, though, their souls are not cleansed and sent to soul society, and instead simply fall into pieces on the ground. Hueco Mundo is more than just a dessert, it's a massive graveyard, except none of the dead are burried."

Ichigo felt a little sick. He had long since abandoned any thoughts of feeling pity for hollows, but the idea that the bodies of the plants that dies were simply left to be trampled... it disgusted him.

"Back to Algae," the voice began, "Algae was the first. We don't know how souls were created, but we do know that Algae was the very first, and that Algae has, as a species, very strong spiritual pressure. Algae is, in fact, on a far more advanced level than almost any human could be." And Ichigo, now back to seeing the floating green blob, saw it start to glow and felt wind coming from it. In other words, he was seeing how Orihime imagined the spiritual pressure of Algae. And speaking of Orihime...

"Inoue, why aren't you speaking to me with your normal voice? Seriously, what's the point of using Morgan Freeman's?" And then Orihime was laughing in her own voice. Really laughing, not at someone's expense or to be polite, but the way that people laugh at a good joke, something truly funny.

"Well," and it was her own voice speaking now, still light with laughter. "I thought a God-like voice would be appropriate." Ichigo couldn't keep himself from laughing. It was so ridiculous.

"Okay, so keep going. Algae?"

"Yes, back to Algae," and Morgan Freeman was talking again. Ichigo barely kept himself from rolling his eyes at Orihime''s antics. The green blob re-appeared.

"Algae was the first, and soon after that was moss," and moss appeared, looking far more fuzzy than Ichigo had ever known moss to be in real life. "And after moss came bushes, and trees, and flowers. Flowers are actually younger, evolutionarily, than trees." Ichigo knew this, but refrained from commenting. He was instead watching as, in front of him, everything Orihime named appeared: bushes, trees, flowers. A lot of flowers, with really odd color combinations.

"Quick question, Inoue," Ichigo injected. "Did trees ever get into fights to prove power like people do? Moreover, do trees have an equivalent to, say, a zanpakuto?"

"Yes and yes," was the reply. "In fact, trees are still constantly fighting, you just don't notice. Their power is on a different field than that of almost all humans, and is therefore almost impossible to detect." and Ichigo saw to trees glowing with spiritual energy, power ripping through them. And yet, they weren't moving. "Tree fights, though, last far longer than any fight between an animal, simply because plants have less free movement than animals do. The battles that happen between trees are often battles of strategy more than strength, as is the case with animals.

"You've seen vines that grow around man-made objects? That's part of the plan's soul's strategy, it's thought process. The plant's soul, even before it dies and abandons its first body, is able to strategize. It's the same reason that weeds are so deadly to other plants: they grow much faster, and are able to destroy enemy strategies quite easily. It's the same as with animals: speed it a huge advantage." and Ichigo saw something like a time lapse movie of two plants, one flower and one weed, as the weed grew much faster and the flower, which was blue and orange (who besides Orihime would invent a blue and orange flower?) died, cheated out of life by the weed. " Make sense?"

"Yeah, I think I've got it."

"Good. Now, while plants evolved, so did animals," and Ichigo saw another cell, brown this time, which split over and over again, splitting and arranging the new cells into various animals. The first one was a fish that appeared to be swimming in place, which had no water. "Fish came first, for the most part. Then they became amphibians," and a frog appeared, walking out of a pool of water that hadn't been there before. "Both fish and amphibians have spiritual abilities. We don't usually sense them, though, because, like Algae, they are on a completely different level than out own. Not stronger per se, just different." and the pool of water seemed to be blown away from the frog, as if it was the source of an invisible tornado.

"Now, then, we come to the first species to rule the planet, which was the dinosaurs," and suddenly Ichigo was surrounded. Every species of dinosaur he could have ever thought of and then some were appearing, one at a time, in the air around him, popping into existence like paint balls on a wall. "Dinosaurs," the voice said, "Are the only creatures that have ever lived that can compete with humans." and the models all vanished in favor of a living, moving Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was roaring in a mad sort of fury, surrounded by a green aura that Ichigo could feel. He almost shivered; tt was truly intimidating.

"When the dinosaurs ruled the World of the Living, they were very much as humans are now," Orihime said, her voice back to normal. "They had society, buildings, even government. They weren't as handy with tools as humans are, but their brains were perfectly functional." and Ichigo saw a palace, much like the one he now called home, but on Earth, on the top of a mountain, with dinosaurs crawling all over it rather than people. There were sounds, too, and blasts of spirit energy in a nearly constant flow from the place.

"I told you before," she said to him as he watched in something like wonder, "that the different species of dinosaurs had different sections of the palace to call their own. The palace you see now was the original palace that existed on earth before the species went extinct." And suddenly, he was floating through the palace, seeing as dinosaurs smaller than most dogs and larger than most cars walked, ran, flew, and trampled by, all making noise, and all emitting that amazing aura.

"When the dinosaurs went extinct, they all went to the soul society," she said, and Ichigo watched from outside the palace as a massive fireball came from the sky and landed directly on the palace, blasting the entire mountain into nonexistence. Then, he found himself in Soul Society, in the flatlands that made up the rukongai, watching as dinosaurs flooded the fields, clearly infuriated by confusion.

"It was a mass extinction. The number of souls in the Soul Society skyrocketed, and threw the world out of balance." and Ichigo recalled Rukia, a long, long time ago, telling him about how the souls between the realms had to be balanced, had to be in constant flow back and forth. It was the duty of Soul Reapers, she had said, to maintain the balance of souls. If that carefully constructed peace was lost, she had explained...

"What happened, Inoue? What happened when they all died?"

"The apocalypse," her voice echoed around his mind, and everything around him went black at once.


	28. A letter from Me

To my dear Readers:

I know it's been a long time since I've updated, and I've got a whole lot of good reasons that I'm sure you don't want to hear. In any case, I've been neglecting my duties to you as my readers. I need to get writing again.

I finally got time, again, and I decided that I would re-read the story—I started it more than a year ago. During my perusal, I found a few things:

First, I cannot believe so many people kept reading past the second chapter, which is completely incomprehensible. I have no idea how you made it through that garbled up mess. So my hat is off to you, who are actually reading this right now.

The big thing I have to tell you, though, is that my plan for the story right now is significantly different than it was when this story began. The ending is the same, but the way it happens is completely different than I originally intended. There are things that I wish I had put in earlier in the story that I can't use now because they weren't there, characters that should have gotten traits I didn't give them, plot twists and so on. There's a lot of backstory that's missing.

So here's the deal: I am going to revamp this story. It's gonna take a while, probably a few months. And I'm going to finish it. When I started, in the first author's notes, I said that I didn't know if I would finish, but now I'm telling you that I will. I'm not sure when it'll happen, but it will.

Since this version is beyond repair—I'm making the chapters longer, moving around material and so on—I am going to leave this story, The Caregiver's Love, as it is. The new version will eventually be posted as "In the End", and once it's up, I'll put up a new chapter here with a link to it so you don't have to put me on your author alert. I just want you all to know that this story will get finished. I'm sorry it's taken so long, but you'll have to wait a while longer.

This story started during a really bad time in my life. I honestly thought that I would kill myself before I got a chance to finish it. Now, though, I know that It'll get there. I just want to make sure you all know that I am committed to this tale through the end, and I will get it there. And even better, it'll be a damn good story, just you wait.

Thank you so much for being so loyal to me through all this crap. I hope to see you when "In the End" in on the road. In the mean time, please just believe me when I say it's coming.

Thank you,

Emmy


End file.
